Princeton University is an Ivy League institution in Princeton, New Jersey, with one of the oldest quiz bowl clubs in existence.
History
Princeton has a lengthy though obscure history of participation in College Bowl. It is known that the club lost to Agnes Scott College in a 1966 episode of the TV program, and that it placed at 4th at CBI nationals in 1984, earning a plate that, though once having been thought to be stowed away in the club's trophy hoard, has unfortunately gone missing.
With the arrival of Jeff Stewart from BYU around 1994, Princeton's previously CBI-only program began attending and hosting ACF events. Princeton deaffiliated from CBI after the 1996-1997 school year.
Princeton has, in the past, been relatively competitive on the national circuit. Led by Jeff Hoppes, Princeton won the Undergraduate title at ICT from 2000-2, and won an unofficial ACF Undergraduate title in 2000 and 2002. Since then, it has not won any national titles.
According to an NAQT interview with Patrick Matthews, Princeton and Penn had a "mostly friendly" rivalry in the College Bowl era, where Penn eliminated Princeton from qualifying for CBI NCT at the ACIU Regionals four years in a row.
Tournament Hosting
Years ago, Princeton hosted PARFAIT, which was originally a packet submission tournament and later became a house written tournament. Previous Princeton college tournaments included Buzzerfest (1997-2004) and the Orville Redenbacher Invitational (c. 1996-1997).
Today, Princeton hosts an annual high school tournament, traditionally using NAQT packets. The tournament has done so well in some years that it attracted teams from as far away as Detroit Central Catholic, and had as many as 69 teams in attendance. Other years, though, the tournament has had numerous issues, most notably in the form of major delays. Later tournaments had buzzer sets break mid-tournament and some schools leave halfway through without notifying the Tournament Director.
Princeton has also hosted other college events like WAO II
Recently, Princeton's club has collaborated with Rutgers to host the New Jersey NAQT State Championship.
Controversy
Princeton and Rutgers' decision to cancel going to ACF Regionals 2007 at Maryland controversially turned that tournament into a farce, consisting only of VCU, two house teams, and a high school team. As a result, a long argument between Matt Weiner, members of the Princeton team, and others flared up on the message boards in this thread.
Former Members
Members with bolded names served as club president.
External Links
Title Succession
Unofficial title succession
