Jake Sundberg

Jake Sundberg

Noted subjects	Math, Physics, Sports, Video Games, Japan, General
Current college	University of Alabama (2010-)
Past colleges	University of Louisiana at Lafayette (2004-2010)
High school	Westgate (2000-2004)
Stats	HDWhite • NAQT

Jake Sundberg is a Ph.D. candidate in mathematics and current player at Alabama. He was the president of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette Club for Academic Competition from 2005 to 2010, where he was also the club's leader in nearly all statistical areas. He is consistently a top scorer in competitions in the southeast and southwest regions, finishing in the top 5 in scoring in every tournament he has played in but one since the start of the 2008-2009 season.

In his first term as president, the "A-Team" won the 2006 Southwest D2 SCT and advanced to the NAQT ICT, held at the University of Maryland. They defeated Tulane 330-210 in the championship game to advance to ICT, where they unfortunately finished tied for 26th. Also, in his first campaign as president, the team consisting of Jake Sundberg, Scott Broussard, Sumedh Deoras, and German Acuna won the 2006 Sword Bowl mirror held at the University of Oklahoma.

Jake is one of the worst D1 players in the month of January, historically. Over the last four years, he has led his team to an astonishingly horrible 8-37 record at SCT. This only reflects on the fact that he is lazy, particularly after the holiday break, and it takes him another month to get back into quizbowl shape.

His strengths as a player are math, physics, sports, literature, Japan, and general knowledge, as well as buzzer fakes. His scoring abilities don't diminish with respect to difficulty level, either. He also adjusts very well to new teammates, given that his team has had a different lineup at almost every tournament he has attended since 2004.

Move to Alabama

Jake and Jonathan Thompson have been rivals for the past five years. There have been so many games that have gone down to the last tossup between ULL and Alabama over the last five years that Jake basically loathed playing against Alabama and hence joined them. The rivalry between ULL and Alabama is most easily explained as follows: it is the quizbowl equivalent of what Saints/Falcons was before the 2000's. Jake decided to join Alabama because they were the only team that took any interest in him.

The first tournament he played at as a Crimson Tide was EFT at Georgia Tech -- his team finished 5th after faltering in the playoffs, notably losing by 425 points to Walton which many forum members held against him. He called this "an event of little importance" and proceeded to play better for most of the rest of the season.

ACF Fall 2010 saw Alabama finish 3rd after losing their opening match to noted community college player Dallin Kelson by quite a few and then later they dropped a close one to Georgia Tech.

In the spring, Jake played a mirror of Terrapin at ULL and won the title and scoring title.

Alabama proceeded to win the D1 Region 6 SCT title and ACF Regionals without Dargan Ware as he was interviewing for summer jobs. Instead, noted sophomore Giacomo Baggiani played ACF Regionals at Tulane, and his alterego, the empty chair, played on the team that won SCT. Jake also won the scoring title at ACF Regionals after being told to buzz in at least 7 times per game by Dargan Ware.

Alabama participated at Penn Bowl in 2011. His team finished 8th in the 18-team field, a disappointment, with teammates Jonathan Thompson, Rob Palmer, and Kyle LeRoy. Later, a team of Jake, Jonathan Thompson, Rob Palmer, and Giacomo Baggiani won ACF Regionals at Tulane with Jake leading the tournament in scoring.

At the 2011 ICT, Alabama finished 12th with an overall record of 8-6 (after changing forfeits from Watkins-gate to wins). They defeated Jordan Palmer's Toronto team in a tiebreaker match for second bracket after losing to them earlier in the day. Alabama did not play ACF Nationals this year.

The 2011-12 season saw Alabama acquire Harrison Brown, which paid dividends. He was magically a superstar, although Sundberg often refers to him as a "statistical diva." With Brown's superior knowledge of analytical things and random things like Maastricht, Alabama became a force. Jake's Alabama team defeated Harrison's DII-eligible team in an advantaged final. An Alabama team of Jake, Harrison, and Jonathan later won 2012 ACF Regionals. The community forecast them finishing 20th at ICT, but they finished 12th again. Jake played ACF Nationals solo, finishing 25th.

The 2012-13 season saw

High School Career

Jake played for Westgate in New Iberia, Louisiana from 2001-2004, where the team underwent three coaching changes. Despite this fact, Jake matured into a decent player over time and contributed lots of science-y questions to his team which was lacking in that area. His general knowledge base began to grow when he began losing teammates due to retirements, which is an unfortunate trend in his quizbowl life. The team had a winning record in all four seasons during Jake's tenure.