VCU
| Virginia Commonwealth University | |
| |
|---|---|
| Location: Richmond, VA | |
| Current President or Coach | Sean Smiley (president), Cody Voight (director of collegiate tournaments), George Berry (director of high school tournaments), Matt Weiner (coach) |
| National championships | 2005 NAQT Undergraduate |
| NAQT Page | link |
VCU's quizbowl team is currently led by Cody Voight, Sean Smiley and George Berry, who are building a perfect society in which the mistakes of the past will be eliminated.
History
A VCU team, about which nothing else is known, attended a 1993 invitational tournament at Virginia as per this Usenet post, and teams from VCU participated in College Bowl at least in 1986 and 1996 according to College Bowl's database (as well as 1991 according to noted villain Tom Michael's page).
More concretely, VCU quizbowl was founded by Matt Weiner in November 2002 by virtue of his attendance at the ACF Fall tournament held by Case Western. Tournaments won by VCU in this time period were the 2003 NAQT Sectionals at Virginia, the 2003 Princeton Buzzerfest, the 2004 Maryland Terrapin, the 2005 NAQT Sectionals, the 2005 Manu Ginobili/Tony Parker at Maryland, the undergraduate title at the 2005 ICT, the 2006 ACF Regionals at Princeton, the 2006 UNC tournament, the 2007 NAQT Sectionals at George Mason, and the 2007 Maryland Terrapin. Evan Adams and Andrew Alexander became team mainstays for the next two years, with George Berry, Cody Voight, and Sean Smiley all joining the team in fall 2009. Sometimes with the aid of dual-enrolled high schooler Tommy Casalaspi, the team went on to finish second to Maryland infinity times, also winning the 2010 ACF Winter tournament at NC Wesleyan and finishing fourth at both Division I and Division II of the 2011 ICT. A VCU team led by Sean Smiley and Cody Voight also won the 2011 ACF Fall site at UVa, and a team containing Smiley, Voight, and Berry finished a strong 14th at ACF Nationals in 2012, losing only to Rice in the second playoff bracket.
Quizbowl at VCU enjoys comparing itself to the VCU basketball team, as both shot to the top tier from relative obscurity in the mid-2000s and had to frequently explain who they were to people from other states (despite being a public research university with 32,000 students, VCU used to be little-known in some places because it does not have a football team). Both teams reached the Final Four of their respective endeavors in 2011, though, with apologies to Coach Smart, the quizbowl team notes that it actually did so twice, in both Division I and Division II of the ICT.
Tournaments Hosted
VCU is an extremely active tournament host at the high school, collegiate, and open levels.
This table lists tournaments organized by the VCU team, even if they were hosted elsewhere, and excludes tournaments organized by others, such as CaTO/TaCO and CULT, even if they were held at VCU, or by people affiliated with the VCU team but acting as individuals.
Title Succession
| |||
| |
| ||