SMU students Leigh Ivey and Katie Reynolds of Pi Phi Sorority and Ryan Baverle and Jonathan Lane of Phi Gamma Delta Fraternity participate in the homecoming week trivia bowl. (Stuart Palley)
“Toss-up, for ten points. Name what these are all associated with: cat’s paw, clothesline, sheep’s hitch…”
BZZT! “Knots.”
That was senior James Longhofer’s first answer for the “Smarter than a 5th grader” team in the 2007 College Bowl, located in the East and Central Ballrooms of the Hughes-Trigg Student Center. “Smarter,” a group composed of Virginia-Snider students, would go on to defeat Delta Gamma/Kappa Sigma, the Asian Council, Mustang 11, and finally Alpha Chi Omega/MGC to win this year’s College Bowl, a Homecoming trivia game consisting of two four-member teams covering topics covering pop culture, history, science and mathematics.
Fourteen teams played in three rounds from 5 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. last night with most representing fraternities and sororities. “Smarter” was the only team not affiliated with any club or fraternity, consisting of senior James Longhofer, junior Andrew Shaw, junior Michael Evans, and junior Matt Olsen. They defeated fellow finalists Alpha Chi Omega/Multicultural Greek Organization with a score of 220-85 to win.
Other teams in play were Kappa Kappa Gamma and Pike, Kappa Alpha Theta and Sigma Chi, Gamma Phi and Sigma Phi Epsilon, Chi Omega and Kappa Alpha Order, Tri-Delta and Lambda Chi, Pi Phi and Fiji, AKA and SAE, and ABS.
The College Bowl Campus Program has been in existence since 1953, when the “Varsity Sport of the Mind” was first held on a radio show in a New York studio, with each college team calling in from their respective campuses. Since then, the College Bowl has received an Emmy and a Peabody for broadcast shows and has had over 500 schools compete in the program.
The College Bowl was sponsored this year by Nabisco, who handed out free samples of their new “Big and Soft” Chips Ahoy to contestants and passers-by. Network Promotions and Events manager Robert Copeland expressed interest in promoting throughout SMU’s Homecoming weekend.
“We’re trying to expand our Chips Ahoy line to the 18-33 college student demographic, and we thought that the SMU Homecoming weekend would be a good place to start,” Copeland said.
Nabisco stands offering free snacks will be found throughout the weekend at various events such as the float parade and the Homecoming game. They will also be around at next week’s football game versus UCF. Supplies of free snacks are not likely to be scarce, with over 9000 boxes of 80-100 cookies being shipped to SMU for the weekend.
