Berkeley Quiz Bowl:
A Short (and comical) History

Semester Presidents/Consuls Notable Events
Spring 2014 Ankit Aggarwal (3),
Nicholas Karas
Fall 2013 Tanay Kothari (4),
Ankit Aggarwal (2)
Berkeley has 9 teams at Collegiate Novice, the second year of hosting California Cup, and a large number of incoming freshmen join the club!
Spring 2013 Tanay Kothari (3),
Ankit Aggarwal
Berkeley continues its California Cup tournament. A team from Mississippi showed up to one of these, as well as Arcadia from Southern California.
Fall 2012 Tanay Kothari (2),
Sharad Vikram (2)
Berkeley hosts possibly the first all-underground (two stories underground, to be exact) quiz bowl tournament. The Fall 2012 Novice Tournamnet was held in the Main Stacks library of the UC Berkeley campus.
Spring 2012 Tanay Kothari,
Sharad Vikram
Three people nominated for president; Di drops out and the election becomes uncontested.
Fall 2011 Sam Braunfeld (4),
Yifan Zhang
Webpages undergoing a massive update after a 6+ semester stagnancy. Brian Alford still regularly shows up to meetings despite having graduated last semester.
Spring 2011 Sam Braunfeld (3),
Brian Alford (3)
Sam solos the SCT 2011 West tournament, actually qualifying Berkeley for nationals by getting 4th place there.
Fall 2010 Sam Braunfeld (2),
Brian Alford (2)
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Spring 2010 Sam Braunfeld,
Brian Alford
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Fall 2009 Steven Pham (2),
Jennifer Ng (2)
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Spring 2009 Steven Pham,
Jennifer Ng
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Fall 2008 Elise Burton (4),
Brett Hallahan (4)
Elise and Brett finally finish serving their hard time as presidents, having reached the term limit. Since the club has been glutted with newcomers, nearly all of which were inexplicably retained, they gladly relinquish power to a new set of presidents.
Spring 2008 Elise Burton (3),
Brett Hallahan (3)
Elise and Brett remain presidents by dint of utterly failing to convince anyone else to take their jobs. Club members clamor for the reinstatement of Thursday practices (which had been discontinued the previous semester) but then promptly forget to show up to them.
Fall 2007 Elise Burton (2),
Brett Hallahan (2)
Elise and Brett remain presidents by dint of no one remembering to hold elections. The wily strategem pays off as a much-needed bumper crop of recruits arrives.
Spring 2007 Brett Hallahan,
Elise Burton
Due to manpower and financial limitations, Berkeley does not travel to either national tournament, leaving its 2006 title undefended.
Fall 2006 David Ding,
Paul Lujan (2)
Graduations and retirements leave the club much smaller than the past several years.
Spring 2006 Larry Wang (2),
Joe Lewis
Berkeley captures its second ICT title, at the University of Maryland, as Jeff Hoppes, David Farris, Paul Lujan, and Brendan Shapiro go undefeated through the field and beat Illinois in a dramatic final. To the relief of many, the club purchases a brand-new Judge to replace the Quiz-a-Matic, worn down after years of faithful service. The constitution is revised and updated.
Fall 2005 Chris Nguyen (2),
Larry Wang
The West Coast quiz circuit experiences a bit of a decline as tournament attendance is down across the board.
Spring 2005 Ashley Chow,
Paul Reverdy (3)
Berkeley sweeps all three regional tournaments and hosts the second edition of the Berkeley Late Spring Tournament inaugurated in 2004. Jeff and Jerry also travel to the feared Manu Ginobili Open as part of an uberteam with Andrew Yaphe and Paul Litvak, which captures first place.
Fall 2004 Paul Reverdy (2),
Salpi Vartivarian
The fall tournament schedule is a little less hectic than in past years, possibly to the relief of members. Berkeley still continues its high level of performance.
Spring 2004 Paul Lujan,
Paul Reverdy
Berkeley captures its first-ever NAQT ICT title, at Washington University St.Louis, as Seth Teitler, Jeff Hoppes, Jon Pennington, and David Farris steamroller the competition. Berkeley also places second at ACF Nationals.
Fall 2003 Brendan Shapiro,
Chris Nguyen
An influx of new blood swells club ranks to possibly their largest ever.
Spring 2003 Jerry Vinokurov (2),
Juliana Froggatt (3)
Berkeley makes a trip to Penn Bowl, taking second place. The unprecedented West Coast NAQT ICT takes place at UCLA, where Berkeley picks up a second place overall, second place undergraduate, and wins the DII championship. On top of all this, Berkeley wins its first ever ACF Nationals at Georgia Tech in April.
Fall 2002 Jerry Vinokurov,
Juliana Froggatt (2)
Berkeley sweeps the West Coast like a plague of locusts, winning many tournaments. Burnout ensues when as many as 5 tournaments are held back-to-back.
Spring 2002 Ross Ritterman (3),
Steve Kaplan (4)
Berkeley wins all the West Coast tournaments it goes to, maybe setting some sort of record. The circuit actually suffers attrition as a result - because of dinosaurs.
Fall 2001 Ross Ritterman (2),
Seth Teitler
Berkeley Quiz Bowl sweeps the fall tournament season, winning everything it attends. Steve Kaplan brings tape to repair the Quiz-a-Matic. The constitution is revised (as partly evidenced by the title change).
Spring 2001 Steve Kaplan (3),
Ross Ritterman
Quiz bowl expands.
Fall 2000 Steve Kaplan (2),
Juliana Froggatt
Berkeley, now wise to the ways of the automobile, is able to send as many as three teams to Southern California tournaments.
Spring 2000 Andy Penner (2),
Steve Kaplan
Jason Hong misses a trans-Atlantic flight and 5 rounds at NAQT Nationals in Boston. Luckily, the team went 5-0. Berkeley places high in ICT.
Fall 1999 Selene Koo,
Andy Penner
Berkeley runs WIT VII, equaling WIT VI in tournament size.
Spring 1999 Katie Kindberg,
Shawn Haghighi
Consules suffecti Mike Usher and Jason Hong have to be appointed to replace the lazy politicians who took office and did nothing. Gaius returns from Italy.
Fall 1998 Jason Hong,
Mike Usher
New recruits stay with the club for the first time in 3 years. WIT VI: Largest tournament in the West to date, with 18 teams attending.
Spring 1998 Steve Lin,
Andy Huang
Gaius still in Italy. Steve and David Levinson run WIT 5.
Fall 1997 Gaius Stern (4),
David Levinson
Gaius performs consular duties from overseas in Italy.
Spring 1997 Gaius Stern (3),
Haggai Elitzur (2)
Nick Myer and Gaius Stern run WIT 4.
Fall 1996 Katy Suttorp,
Haggai Elitzur
First undergraduate pair of consuls.
Spring 1996 Gaius Stern (2),
Matt Baker (2)
Matt resigns in June so that graduating Rachel Bussel can hold office as consul suffecta until August 25th.
Fall 1995 Gaius Stern,
Matt Baker
The wildly successful WIT3 "Guy Fawkes Eve Buzzer Explosion" introduces the concept of feeding everyone a lavish bagel breakfast. (As of fall 2011, Matt Baker is back in the math dept. of Berkeley)
Spring 1995 Imperator Arun Unnikrishnan Arun implements system of two consuls (presidents). Berkeley de-affliates from Collegebowl.
Fall 1994 David Dixon (Sept-Oct),
Arun Unnikrishnan (Oct-Dec)
After the disastrous WIT 2, Arun directs the creation of the system of consuls for club administration. Dixon deposed in the October Revolt. 20-player Quiz-a-matic system purchased.
Spring 1994 David Dixon Berkeley wins Collegebowl regionals.
Fall 1993 David Dixon, Dictator Perpetuus Quiz Bowl created for collegebowl competitions.

The early parts of this history were originally written by Gaius Stern; it has been later updated by future webmasters.

Why We Were U-MD West Coast

In 1992, Gaius Stern and Andrew Shechter came to Berkeley, starting a long trend of Marylanders migrating west. Fellow Marylander Rafi Laufer was already here, but Berkeley did not have a Quiz Bowl club yet. In Fall '94, Matt Baker, David Levinson, and Jeff Newman (honorary Maryland by virtue of his college degree if not birth) all followed and began the conversion of the now- established club to its current ACF orientation.

That same year, Sherman Lo left U-MD-CP to attend Stanford. Two other Marylanders occasionally showed up to Berkeley practice, Sarah Kline (Stanford Law '98) and Eliot Wilen. On some occasions, two thirds of all players holding a buzzer at practice were Marylanders. At 1995 ACF-Nationals, the old 1992 U-MD-CP team was largely reunited as Baker, Newman and Stern played with Levinson and Phil Huang to take 3rd place, hence the popular moniker.

On that occasion, Matt Baker, captain of the U-MD-WC team, suckered U-MD-CP player Vishnu Jejjala into betting a dime per point that U-MD-CP would beat U-MD-WC with an 80 point spread. Marc Swisdak (now at U-Colo) helped dupe Vishnu by underestimating Berkeley's team. When Matt's team won by 120 points, he took his money and laughed all the way to the bank.

Unfortunately, Maryland West Coast also suffers from "the Curse." The curse strikes at most unfortunate moments, whereby MD B players cut short the winning streaks of the MD A team. At the 1997 ACF Nationals, an upstart B team from U-MD-CP beat Maryland West Coast (with Jeff and Gaius playing) by 10 points and kept them out of the semi-finals.

Later that weekend, in an exhibition game, Maryland West Coast beat Maryland College Park A by a substantial margin.