This took a lot longer than I expected to finish.
For the past two years, I’ve been in a decidedly fortunate situation within college quizbowl. I’d like to thank a couple people who’ve helped welcome me into it, starting with my club:
You don’t need to be told how scary of a player Eve Fleisig is, but as someone who constantly practices and plays against her, it never ceases to be impressive. Any question gotten against her is a victory, and it’s nice to be reminded by her skill how much more there is to read and learn (even the stuffy things she knows, which she still makes sound interesting with her passionate retellings). Beyond quizbowl, I’m glad to be a part of a club with someone as kind and thoughtful as Eve. She’s also a great baker.
Nathaniel Hull is the kind of person you instantly want to be friends with. He brings the same qualities of composure and reliability on and off the buzzer and is effortlessly knowledgeable about so many things, from Chautauqua Lake to Barnstable, Massachusetts. He can strike up a conversation anywhere, anytime, and I enjoyed staying up with him talking until 5 am at ICT. Despite being a top ten history player (maybe the best out of anyone in the club at a major category), Nathaniel might be a better boardgamer than quizbowler, though it’s also possible I’m just not very good.
I’m truly grateful to Shahar Schwartz for running the club with me this year — we’ll have to figure out how to do it without him next year. I share a lot of Shahar’s enthusiasm for quizbowl and am always happy to discuss the game and its theory with him. I also share his propensity for negging and am well on track to beat the Berkeley neg record that he currently owns. Shahar is also a very good quizbowler and boardgamer in his own right, and I hope that he enjoys getting away from 20-hour lab weeks, at least for a bit.
If the Berkeley club were to play 1v1 on anything sufficiently difficult, Swapnil Garg would probably come out on top. Swapnil plays quizbowl with an intelligence I’ve never seen elsewhere, being able to put together good and very often correct guesses from the barest of context. I’ve played with him thrice this season, and he’s always been a good teammate to play with, never out of witty commentary. Sometimes I’m surprised someone as cracked as Swapnil is spending his time playing quizbowl with us. Shoutout to him for hosting our end-of-the-year party twice.
Ryan Sun is a real hooper. We entered college at the same time and have now played multiple nationals shorthanded together, with Ryan making both of them highly enjoyable. He’s one of the best and most consistent players I’ve met — you always know he’s going to destroy a couple of tossups and seldom be wrong when playing with him, all while he’s super chill about it. He’s also elite at China-related content and a clutch bar trivia knower. Thanks for putting up with all my negs and also for carrying me in Mario Party.
Rohan Shelke is someone I knew from playing in high school, but didn’t get to know well until playing alongside him. It’s immediately clear upon meeting Rohan the interest and curiosity that he has for the world around him: he’s great at geography, a connoisseur of regional cuisine (Culver’s), and an experienced recommender of campus study spots. Rohan also knows many quizbowl things that I could never imagine learning, and I’m glad to have played with him on our ICT and Nats teams this year. I hope Haas doesn’t get to his integrity.
We missed Vinu Harihar at Nats and it showed, though I wish him the best of luck with his quals. Vinu added a lot of experience to a team that was otherwise pretty young, and this is without mentioning his almost inscrutable knowledge base. I hope I get to see more of him and the genial presence he brings next year; fingers crossed to witness another incredible first line after he wakes up from a nap. Vinu also knows an absurd amount about the Bay Area food scene for someone who only recently moved here.
Kevin Ye and I had only a year of overlap at school, but we’ve still become relatively good friends. I take great pleasure in watching him destroy a set’s physics and then depreflex, as well as discussing with him different questions that caught our attention. There are a lot of pockets of literature in which Kevin is really well-read, and though it’s unfortunate that he plays in the circuit he does, he’s a good source of plays and short stories. We’re all going to miss him a bunch as he goes back to Canada this fall. Thanks for corralling me to Bobby G’s nearly every Wednesday despite me not knowing anything.
Beyond the teammates most adjacent to me, here are some other nearby people I’d like to mention:
Rohan Venkateswaran and Angela Sun reached out to me last year asking if I wanted to take over the club and they’ve been a great help in smoothing the transition to someone less experienced.
Terry, Albert, and Janghyun have been nothing short of extremely impressive for, I believe, newcomers to quizbowl. I was blown away by them during our early practices, and they’ve only gotten better since.
East Coast transplants Jason Golfinos, Grace Liu, and Kelvin Li have been a great help to us in terms of getting staff for our tournaments.
Thank you to Nicholas Karas, Jeff Hoppes, and all the other staffers and volunteers who helped put on the CalCups. Nicholas especially does a tremendous job of coordinating everything while being on the other side of the country, and we’re really appreciative of the work he does for the NorCal circuit.
Though the field sizes aren’t the largest, our tournaments resultantly had a high-skill floor (the highest of any region, I might claim). Though I can’t speak for everyone, I’m glad to be able to constantly face off against such good competition, which mostly consisted of the people I’ve mentioned above and Stanford, which includes Tim Morrison, Andrew Zeng, Michał Gerasimiuk, Allan Lee, Eric Wolfsberg, Natan Holtzman, Ethan Strombeck, Emmett Chung, and more. Despite currently being the only other Bay Area quizbowl fixture, I’m always glad to see their faces yet again.
A few other quizbowl people whom I’ve interacted with and am currently working alongside on a set:
Despite his many fans, Jeremy Cummings is still underrated. Beyond being extremely good at music and math, Jeremy’s also the reason I’ve been introduced to a lot of trick-taking games and British game shows. He’s a good teammate, always rational and level-headed, and he carried me at Chicago Open and Sammarinese. Despite some bad difficulty takes and a strange worldview, he’s a pretty good guy who always manages to find a way to surprise me (did you know he was born in California?) and keeps me informed about Shakespeare and other modern play stagings.
Young Fenimore Lee is a hard worker. From single-handedly holding up the Ohio University quizbowl team to crafting beautiful poems on the daily, I’m constantly impressed by the amount of effort they put into their craft, whatever it be at that particular moment. In my head, they fit a lot of humanities stereotypes, but I’m often reminded of how skilled they are in many different areas. I’m looking forward to reading new copies of their music publication Jellybones and seeing the poet, teacher, quizbowler, and friend they become.
Aiden Dartley is at least t5 birds, but I guess he’s pretty well-rounded otherwise, despite not pulling the bears and squirrels clue he told me about at ICT last year. I’ve counted him as a friend for a while, and I appreciate each and every out-of-pocket link he sends me (even when I don’t respond to them). He’s also a damn good writer and is leading PLAYTIME in question volume, so after the set gets done, he definitely deserves another shoutout or three. I hope he escapes New Jersey one day.
Sinecio Morales has been talked about enough in this thread, but suffice it to say he’s good at the quib. Even though he’s secretly very mean (not really), I’m glad to have gotten closer with him over the past year and am lucky to count him as one of my friends. Sinecio is always down to have a late-night talk about anything, and it’s been edifying to hear his thoughts on various topics, quizbowl and non-quizbowl. He’s dedicated to the game and continues to hone his skill, growing as a good contributor to the JHU team while not beating the pre-med allegations (because they’re true).
Kevin Park is, as a fellow Californian, one of the first people in this section I met in real life during my first meaningful in-person tournament. Kevin’s always on the grind, and it shows. Every moment I spend with him, whether it’s solving crosswords, playing Framed, or listening to him rant about Barry Lyndon and the evils of modern music, I see how passionate he is about every facet of his life and how dedicated he is to growth and success. I know he’s going to continue improving, which I’m looking forward to seeing along with his journey to med school.
Despite being robbed multiple times in past science player polls, Dan Ni is pretty cracked at science, Buddhism, and Simpsons trivia (and has gotten me to watch some of the newer seasons). He’s a good teammate and a constant springboard of interesting discussion. He also has a thought-provoking, technical approach to questions that makes me excited to hear his answer to anything. I’m looking forward to playing his Festivus packet this year and seeing which of our friends’ names he’ll butcher in pursuit of the perfect pun.
Marc Calza, while not an active player in the college circuit, is an expert mathematician and truly one of the kindest people I know. They’re always willing to lend a hand or give useful advice to anyone who asks, and they consistently look for ways to make the lives of other people better. There’s no artifice with Marc, and they manage to be a cool and interesting person without ever straying from the values that they hold. Marc’s knowledge of old sitcoms is unmatched.
Brynn Jones is a vet at many things — decent haircuts, appearing on television, horsebowl, and soon veterinary medicine. She’s a pretty cool cat (with many cats) who’s cracked at myth and always has the latest gossip about wayward veterinary clinic assistants. I’m always continually impressed by the breadth of her knowledge and how clever she is: I made a joke about how I hoped she’d remember us when she won a lot of money on a game show, and then it happened within the year. I know she’s going to do great things at Oregon State and beyond!
Coby Tran, as made immediately clear after only a few exchanges, is one of the funnier people I know. Though I only got to meet him in person recently, I enjoyed our evening conversation at Denny’s and every other talk we’ve had. I wish him luck with his masters and his quest to sell out, even if it means he’s joining the empire of Chicago quizbowl. He also declared me the winner of Cookie Clicker Winter Tournament Two, which is cool.
Though they're also not currently playing in the college circuit, James Orefice is truly the GOAT when it comes to Eastern European film and French novelist Sporcle quizzes. Their sarcasm is as sharp as their wit, and whenever I have the pleasure of speaking with them, I always end up learning something new. Beyond being a beast at Eyes packets they’ve played twice before, James is a good friend, and I’m always keeping an eye out at art museums to find a new cool piece they hopefully haven’t seen yet.
Thank you to everyone who helped make this quizbowl season possible and improved it with their presence.
