Harvard is a large private university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It participates in ACF, mACF, and NAQT tournaments.
History
Jeff Johnson led Harvard to a series of successes in the second half of the nineties, retiring after their 3rd and 2nd place finishes in the 1997 ICT and ACF tournaments.
Harvard performed the notable feat of qualifying three teams for the 2000 NAQT ICT at nearby Boston University with a total of five players. Harvard hosted the SCT and had very few people available. Two of the teams consisted of Jeff Johnson and Vik Vaz playing solo.
The club was quite large, sending as many as seven teams to local tournaments through the end of the nineties. A precipitous decline followed.
Vik Vaz, Dan Suzman, Jim Davis, and Frank Kelly won the ICT undergrad title in 2003. Harvard (Dan Suzman, Paco Brito, Jim Davis) returned to the undergrad final in 2004 before falling to Illinois. The same year, Harvard's Division II team (Sarah Watson, Noam Lerer, Eric Nielsen, Alexandra Helprin) finished third after losing in a tiebreaker. Harvard (Dan Suzman, Frank Kelly, Will Rooke) took third in the undergraduate division in 2005 after losing a tiebreaker to Carlton. In 2006, Harvard again qualified one undergrad team, which registered but couldn't be bothered to show up. People were rightfully pretty angry.
But Harvard's all-freshman Division II team that year (Kyle Haddad-Fonda, Sam Lederer, John Lesieutre, Adam Hallowell) came on their own and took second place after falling to Stanford in the final. In 2007, Harvard's all-sophomore team (Kyle Haddad-Fonda, Julia Schlozman, John Lesieutre, Adam Hallowell) placed second after losing to Carlton in the undergraduate final. As juniors, that same team won the Undergraduate title at the 2008 ICT.
From 2009 to 2011, Harvard A did not win any games at the DI ICT.
Harvard placed fifth overall at the 2014 ACF Nationals. Harvard's B team won the DII title at the 2018 ACF Nationals by virtue of being the only DII team in the field.
Tournaments
In addition to occasionally hosting ACF or NAQT tournaments, Harvard runs an annual high school tournament, the Harvard Fall Tournament. Under the now disgraced leadership of Andy Watkins, the team hosted two packet-submission regular-difficulty T-Party events and two housewritten nationals-difficulty Harvard Internationals.
HFT
Harvard has produced HFT since 2006 designed to be a challenging set for high school quizbowlers (hence the designation "regular-plus" difficulty). While generally well received, HFT has long faced criticisms for being too difficult. Recent iterations of the set have shown to be more accessible.
Media Exposure
In late 2008, the Harvard quizbowl team became the center of two articles by student journalist Christian B. Flow, who practiced and traveled with the team for a number of weeks. These articles were extremely well received by the Quiz Bowl community.
The Watkinsgate scandal generated significant national media coverage, from outlets like The Boston Globe[1], Los Angeles Times, and others.
Nationals Results
|
ACF Nationals (2005–) |
Division I ICT |
Division II ICT
|
| 1997 |
|
A: 2nd
B: 38th
|
| 1998 |
|
3rd |
22nd
|
| 1999 |
|
6th |
4th
|
| 2000 |
|
A: 5th
B: 22nd |
1st
|
| 2001 |
|
15th |
|
| 2002 |
|
9th |
|
| 2003 |
|
7th (1st UG) |
|
| 2004 |
|
8th |
3rd
|
| 2005 |
7th |
11th |
|
| 2006 |
|
|
2nd
|
| 2007 |
|
10th |
4th
|
| 2008 |
A: 10th
B: 17th |
8th (1st UG) |
18th
|
| 2009 |
6th |
32nd* |
10th
|
| 2010 |
10th |
32nd* |
6th
|
| 2011 |
6th |
32nd* |
17th
|
| 2012 |
5th |
6th |
1st
|
| 2013 |
9th |
10th |
4th
|
| 2014 |
5th |
9th |
1st
|
| 2015 |
15th |
17th |
|
| 2016 |
22nd |
12th |
11th
|
| 2017 |
21st |
|
9th
|
| 2018 |
A: 24th
B: 45th (1st DII) |
22nd |
2nd
|
| 2019 |
A: 20th
B: 24th (1st DII) |
25th |
A: 4th
B:32nd
|
*Due to the Andy Watkins cheating scandal, all of Harvard A's victories at the 2009, 2010, and 2011 ICTs were revoked.
Current Players
As of 2019-20 season:
Former Players
Title Succession
College Bowl Title Succession
Unofficial title succession
|
|
| Preceded by |
Year |
Succeeded by
|
| MIT B |
2018, 2019 |
N/A
|
References
- ↑ [1]
