Robert Grierson Friend of Scholastic Bowl Award

The Robert Grierson Friend of Scholastic Bowl Award is an award, generally awarded on an annual basis by the Illinois High School Scholastic Bowl Coaches Association (IHSSBCA). The award is generally given to individuals or groups (other than active coaches) who have in various ways helped improve the quality of the competition, enhanced opportunities for competition, or helped publicize quizbowl in the state of Illinois.

Until 2009, the award was always given to an Illinois resident.

The award was first given in 1996 as the Friend of Scholastic Bowl Award. After 1997, the award was not given again until 2002, when two awards were given, one retroactive to 2001, since which, it has been given annually. Since 2006, the award has been given out at the annual IHSSBCA banquet, held at Illinois State University in Normal.

In 2003, the award was renamed for Rob Grierson.

Year	Recipient	Position	Reasoning
1996	Garrie Burr	Senior Grand Warden of the Masonic Grand Lodge of Illinois	Long standing and continued support of the Illinois Grand Lodge for their state championship tournament, the oldest state tournament in Illinois
1997	Bill Zobus	Representative of the Streator Rotary Club	The organization's long standing support of competition, notably, the annual Streator Rotary Tournament which is believed to be the oldest continuously run quiz bowl tournament in Illinois
2001	Chuck Fabish	Assistant Regional Superintendent of Peoria County	For using his office to promote Scholastic Bowl in the region, which had an influence statewide; awarded retroactively in 2002.
2002	J. Barron Robinson	Former principal of Springfield Southeast High School	"The Patriarch of Springfield Scholastic Bowl", Robinson was given the award for his tireless work to promote the activity in its early days, and for his years as a dedicated coach, advocate of the activity, and for his years as an official (which continue to the present).
2003	Rob Grierson	Former coach at The Latin School and long time officer of the IHSSBCA	For his tireless work in founding and building the IHSSBCA, his years as an official, and his years serving the association as treasurer and as editor of Scholastic Visions, the newsletter of the Association. Starting with this award, the award was renamed in honor of Grierson.
2004	Dave Shultz and Alex Gary	Reporters for the Rockford Register Star Newspaper	For their establishment of the "Brain Games" page on the newspaper's website; the first attempt by a newspaper in Illinois to establish continuous high profile reporting for academic competition, especially Scholastic Bowl, and in doing so established a "model for the nation on the reporting of academic competition".
2005	Anthony Holman	Associate Executive Director of the Illinois High School Association (IHSA)	For improving the relationship between the IHSSBCA and IHSA, and overseeing numerous improvements to the activity, including a streamlined rule book and the addition of a case manual to help illustrate consistent application of the rules statewide.
2006	Wendell Walch	Member of the Masonic Grand Lodge of Illinois	For his tireless work in running the Illinois Masonic State Championship Tournament from 1998-2004. Over his tenure heading the committee which oversaw the tournament, Mr. Walch saw a drastic increase in participation which helped to increase the number of schools competing statewide, as well as providing financial awards for teams to enhance their participation.
2007	Durwin Nigus and Pam Nigus	Owners of Buzzersystems.com (formerly Novell Electronic Designs)	For their long time and ongoing support of quizbowl nationally, and especially in Illinois, by offering high quality buzzer systems, outstanding customer service, and for their long standing generous donation of lockout systems to the IHSA State Championship Tournament.
2008	John Rathbun		For his years of service as IHSA State Championship Tournament Manager and Peoria Area League Manager, as well as his work with Peoria Area World Affairs Council
2009	J.R. Barry and Carlotta Wright	ACE Quizbowl Camp
2010	Cvijanovich family	Matt's Buzzers[1]
2011	University of Illinois Academic Buzzer Team		For the work they have done hosting high school tournaments, supporting other high school tournaments, and supporting the high school circuit.
2012	Frank Conry, Neil Pavlus, and Nelson Pyle	Former principals of Byron, Stillman Valley, and Winnebago	For their work in helping to start the mess that is the Masonic Tournament.
2013	Brad Fischer and Kristin Strey	SCOP	For their tournament direction and stats work, and for their work on SCOP outreach program.
2014	no award
2015	Mike Wong		For his work as a tournament director and logistics expertise which have helped the association.
2016	Dale Thayer		For his leadership of the Masonic State Tournament.
2017	Tom Egan		Writing rule book, case manual, officiating, and for leading changes in IHSA question policy.
2018	David Reinstein		For his leadership of the IHSSBCA, tournament direction, question writing and editing, and officiating.
2019	Marshall Mullins		For his work with Central Illinois tournaments as director, organizer, and official.
2020	Tyler Vaughn		For his work as an official and tournament director, particularly for his work with the Illinois NAQT State Tournament.
2021	Em Gunter and Karan Gurazada		For their work in automating online tournament creation and logistics, which allowed for on-line tournaments during the COVID-19 pandemic.
2022	Andrew Nadig		For his development of YellowFruit as a tournament logistics and statistics tool.
2023	Kraig Garber		For exemplary service to the Illinois Scholastic Bowl community as IHSA Executive Director.