Battle of the Brains

A high school televised quizbowl competition in Virginia, for Richmond-area schools (1979-present) as well as for Hampton Roads (2005-present).

Stations & Hosts

It's Academic was aired for one academic year in the Richmond area, ending in 1976. In 1975, Julian Porter created the Battle of the Brains tournament as an intramural tournament for Meadowbrook High School. From 1976 to 1978 it was for Chesterfield County schools only, and in 1978 the finals match was televised on the local PBS station. In 1979 the tournament expanded to all of Central Virginia and was televised in its entirety. Al Moffitt moderated the original intramural competition. Frank Soden was the longtime host of the PBS program until his 1994 retirement, being joined for one season by Bill King. Ken Curtis also hosted the show at some point. Garret Chester hosted for one season in 1995. From 1996 to 2002, the show was hosted by noted person who "caught a guppy because she was fishing in the dark," May-Lily Lee. Michelle Gary hosted on RICH in 2003, and Cheryl Miller has hosted since 2004.

In 1997 the name was changed to "Challenge 23" (because the PBS station was broadcast on UHF channel 23). This name was retained until the show was cancelled by WCVE in 2002. Julian Porter brought the show first to RICH-TV (a local cable access station) in 2003, and then to the local CBS affiliate in 2004, reclaiming the Battle of the Brains name. Starting in 2004, a second tournament was added for the Virginia Beach/Norfolk/Newport News area, under the name "Southeast Virginia." The winners of the two tournaments play in the "Champions Challenge," which, along with an all-star game where every player competes for himself, was added to the taping schedule as a post-finals event. Cheryl Miller has been the host of the Richmond tournament and the Champions Challenge since the move to WTVR, while Stephanie Harris hosts the Hampton Roads version.

Sponsorship

From the first all-televised tournament in 1979 until sometime in the mid-1980s, the show was sponsored by grocery store chain Safeway (which once existed in Richmond!). From the end of Safeway sponsorship until the end of the PBS era in 2002, the show was sponsored by the sinister Richmond-area grocery/religion conglomerate Ukrop's, which awarded $1000 and a cake to the winning team. Since its move to CBS it has been sponsored by the Virginia Lottery (gambling is bad, kids).

One unique feature of this tournament during the Challenge 23 era was its awarding of the single paper set of questions used in each year's competition to the tournament winner. Thus, past champions could view judge's notes, running scores, and other information written on the packets while holding exclusive access to certain practice material.

Questions/Format

During the 1990s, questions were provided by Answers Plus. A special NAQT set was used from the mid-00s through 2008. It is unknown where the 2009 questions come from, though it has been confirmed they were not written by NAQT. According to a June 2009 email between Julian Porter and Dave Porter (no relation!), the 2008-2009 questions came from "several 'professional' question writing companies" and that the show receives "questions from our team of educational consultants."

The show has experimented with several different match formats over the years, including a standard four quarter setup and a modified four quarter with the bonus or category rounds replaced with visual-based clues (such as a round where pyramidal clues were read about an object as a picture of the object was slowly uncovered). In the waning years of Challenge 23, the category round was replaced with a "spelling round," which led to some teams replacing their normal fourth player with a spelling specialist.

Currently, the format is one phase of tossups, two category rounds, and a second phase of tossups.

Incidents

Until 1992 every episode of the show was broadcast live; from 1993 to 2002, only the finals were. The show is now taped in advance. The live broadcasts allowed for many strange things to happen, such as a mysterious individual running onto the stage and jumping into the arms of winning team member Jimmy Hare following the 2000 championship game.

In 1988, the championship was won on a sudden-death tiebreaker question, which began "The Netherlands...." and was successfully interrupted by a Meadowbrook player with "euthanasia."

Information 1976-2004 (Richmond-only show)

Year & Show Name	Champion	Second	Host & Station	Notes
1976 Battle of the Brains			Not televised
1977 Battle of the Brains			Not televised
1978 Battle of the Brains			Final game televised on PBS WCVE
1979 Battle of the Brains			PBS WCVE
1980 Battle of the Brains			Frank Soden, PBS WCVE
1981 Battle of the Brains			Frank Soden, PBS WCVE
1982 Battle of the Brains			Frank Soden, PBS WCVE
1983 Battle of the Brains			Frank Soden, PBS WCVE
1984 Battle of the Brains			Frank Soden, PBS WCVE
1985 Battle of the Brains	St. Christopher's		Frank Soden, PBS WCVE
1986 Battle of the Brains	Stafford		Frank Soden, PBS WCVE
1987 Battle of the Brains	Thomas Dale		Frank Soden, PBS WCVE
1988 Battle of the Brains	Meadowbrook		Frank Soden, PBS WCVE
1989 Battle of the Brains	Douglas Freeman		Frank Soden, PBS WCVE
1990 Battle of the Brains	Collegiate		Frank Soden, PBS WCVE
1991 Battle of the Brains	Collegiate	Douglas Freeman	Frank Soden, PBS WCVE	In fall 1990, WCVE also broadcast the final game of the Virginia Tech high school tournament, between Thomas Jefferson and St. Anne's-Belfield.
1992 Battle of the Brains	Douglas Freeman	Thomas Dale	Frank Soden, PBS WCVE
1993 Battle of the Brains	Maggie Walker		Frank Soden & Bill King, PBS WCVE
1994 Battle of the Brains	Maggie Walker		Frank Soden, PBS WCVE
1995 Battle of the Brains	Maggie Walker		Garret Chester, PBS WCVE
1996 Battle of the Brains	Maggie Walker		May-Lily Lee, PBS WCVE
1997 Battle of the Brains	St. Christopher's	Maggie Walker	May-Lily Lee, PBS WCVE
1998 Challenge 23	St. Christopher's	Maggie Walker	May-Lily Lee, PBS WCVE
1999 Challenge 23	Maggie Walker	Thomas Dale	May-Lily Lee, PBS WCVE
2000 Challenge 23	Maggie Walker	St. Christopher's	May-Lily Lee, PBS WCVE
2001 Challenge 23	Collegiate		May-Lily Lee, PBS WCVE
2002 Challenge 23	Maggie Walker		May-Lily Lee, PBS WCVE
2003 Battle of the Brains	Blessed Sacrament-Huguenot	Mills Godwin	Michelle Gary, public access RICH
2004 Battle of the Brains	Maggie Walker	Charlottesville	Cheryl Miller, CBS WTVR

Information 2005-on

Champions Challenge winner in bold.

Year & Show Name	Richmond Champion	Southeast Virginia Champion	Richmond Host & Station	Southeast Virginia Host & Station	Notes
2005 Battle of the Brains	Charlottesville	Kecoughtan	Cheryl Miller, CBS WTVR	Stephanie Harris, NBC WAVY
2006 Battle of the Brains	Maggie Walker	Ocean Lakes	Cheryl Miller, CBS WTVR	Stephanie Harris, NBC WAVY
2007 Battle of the Brains	Maggie Walker	Ocean Lakes	Cheryl Miller, CBS WTVR	Stephanie Harris, NBC WAVY
2008 Battle of the Brains	Maggie Walker	Hickory	Cheryl Miller, CBS WTVR	Stephanie Harris, NBC WAVY
2009 Battle of the Brains	Maggie Walker	Ocean Lakes	Cheryl Miller, CBS WTVR	Stephanie Harris, NBC WAVY

Links

• Battle of the Brains history
• Champions 1985-present
• Clips from a Frank Soden game featuring John Aboud of Modern Humorist and VH1 playing for Douglas Freeman circa 1991