QUIZ BOWL NATIONALS

JUNE 3 -6, 2004

Park Plaza Hotel, Houston, Tx.

 

The CPS Quiz Bowl team members [Vincent Zimmern, James Hansell, Kenneth Spence, & Erik Tanner] journeyed down to Houston for the NAQT Nationals.  What follows is a kind of day-by-day summary of events . Photos of the participants can be found here

                 

Thursday – June 3, 2004

            After a 4-hour drive Thursday morning, we decided to do some serious sightsee­ing before we checked into our hotel.  Destination: San Jacinto Monument and the USS TEXAS. While getting to the battlefield monument required us to drive for several miles through the petrochemical heart of Houston’s ship channel area [Yeck!], the state park is dominated by this strik­ing obelisk that pieces the gray-blue sky and can be seen from miles away! Higher than the Washington Monument, we took the 1930’s elevator [which STILL uses an operator!] to the top and had a breathtak­ing view of the Battlefield, the USS Texas, and the Houston Ship Channel.

Later, we drove to the adjacent dreadnought, the USS Texas.  This massive battle­ship built before WWI is an impressive testament to the way war was fought in the 20th century.  While we explored the ship, both above and below deck, we all agreed that claustrophobia would keep us from volunteering for service!

 

Friday – June 4, 2004

            Friday morning was a journey into Houston’s rich cultural life, especially its Folk Art and museums.  We started off going to The Orange Show.  This one-man’s paean to the fruit and the color orange is one of the great Folk Art places in the US. Acres of wrought iron, color, mosaics, tile-work, and slogans in praise of the orange assault the senses as we wandered around – it really can’t be described – one must go and visit!

            Next we drove off to The Beer Can House – yes, that’s right.  This Folk Art resi­dence is totally and completely covered in what were beer cans, beer bottles, beer cases – ANYTYHING that once held beer is now used to cover this house and all the outlying structures: garage, bird bath, wind chimes.  See the photos if you can’t imagine how it looks!

            After a morning of Folk Art, in quick succession we visited the Rothko Chapel, the Byzantine Mosaic Chapel, the Cy Twombly Gallery, and --- best of all --- the Menil Collection.  A brief impression of each:

Rothko Chapel – This octagonal chapel is a brooding place of meditation with 14 dark panels of over­whelming sadness and darkness done by the modern American Ex­pressionist, Mark Rothko. I found it quite depressing; others, peaceful and serene.

            Byzantine Mosaic Chapel – The complete interior of a Byzantine chapel has been beautifully re-constructed – a wonderful place to pray!

            Cy Twombly Gallery – Cy Twombly is an abstract painter born in the US who resides in Italy. A lovely, light-filled gallery designed by Renzo Piano contains gigantic panels of color that are, well, bizarre.  We all liked “the green works”.

            Menil Collection – The de Menil family has gathered together a superb collection from among the masters of the 20th century: Pablo Picasso, Max Ernest, Rene Magritte, etc. We all were very much impressed by these works AND by the other half of the Menil collection which is a fine group of Hellenistic and African antiqui­ties.

 


Saturday – June 5, 2004

            Today was the actual competition: 10 grueling rounds of competition using the so-called Swiss Pairing method. In this system, after each round is finished, the results are used to match each team with another team having the same or similar record. Thus, winners play winners, losers play losers. As the day goes on, teams play other teams who are more and more evenly matched. This results in a lot of close matches [We won or lost 4 of 10 games by less than 25 points!] and sorts out the field of 64 schools!

            As the youngest team in the field, it seemed as though we’d be fortunate to win 1 or 2 matches, and our first game, a 110 vs. 200 loss to New Jersey-Millburn High, seemed to verify that. Yet, as the day progressed, we found ourselves winning as many as we lost:

 

            Round 1 – (Loss) to Millburn (NJ) – 110 – 200

            Round 2 – (Win) to Truth Seekers (KS) 265 – 20

            Round 3 – (Win) to Dana Hills (CA) – 220 – 215

            Round 4 – (Win) to Hart HS (CA) – 210 – 190

            Round 5 – (Loss) to Rufus King (WI) – 210 – 215

            Round 6 - (Loss) to Queen Anne (VA) – 165 – 245

            Round 7 – (Win) to Menlo-Stanford (CA) – 245 – 145

            Round 8 – (Loss) to Armstrong HS (MN) – 120 – 155

            Round 9 – (Win) to Millburn (B) (NJ) – 175 – 70

            Round 10 – (Loss)[1] to Wassau West (WI) – 120 – 130

 

The last game ended with a protest which we ultimately did not win. If we had, then our very young varsity team would have advanced to the Championship Round of 24 on Sun­day.  In the end, we were quite happy with a 5 – 5 record and to be ranked 29th out of 64 teams.

            A few statistics about the 314 players show how outstanding our foursome from Cistercian really is: Out of the top ½ of the entire field of 314 players, only 14% (22 players) were freshmen or sophomores. Cistercian -- with 4 out of those 22 – had roughly 20% of all the top-flight, younger competitors.

            Even more remarkable is the statistic that for the state of Texas, only 5 younger players were found in the top ½ of all players. Cistercian had 4 out of those 5 players!

 

            Saturday evening we had a wonderful victory supper of sorts and talked away much of the evening.

 

 

 

Sunday – June 6, 2004

            Our drive back to Dallas was uneventful except for a long detour around construc­tion on I-45.  We ended a great tournament experience back in Dallas in time for supper with lots of good memories to consider.

 

We would like to offer a special thanks to Mrs. Gina Tanner and Mrs. Mary Hansell, both of who served as parent-chaperones for the trip.

 

Don’t forget to check out the link to our Photo Gallery on Father Gregory’s school web page. There are some great shots of our touring Houston and playing in the tournament.


[1] The loss to Wassau West High School involved a very complicated protest that lasted almost an hour with the entire Committee on Rules and Protests. What a zoo! Needless to say, the protest did not go our way, yet everyone seemed to handle the matter with good cheer and grace.