2004 UCLA
The 2004 UCLA team usually consisted of at least two of Steve Kaplan, Charles Meigs, Matthew Sherman, and Dwight Wynne. Other club members such as Patrick Friel made appearances with the team, though far less frequently than the above four.
While winning or placing highly in several local events, the UCLA team is primary known for three things: the introduction of Aztlan Cup, the development of UCLA's lexicon, and winning ICT Division II under circumstances thought by many to be fraudulent.
Aztlan Cup
- See article on Aztlan Cup
Early in the academic year, Charles decided that UCLA needed a signature packet-submission tournament along the lines of other West Coast tournaments such as WIT, Technophobia, and Cardinal Classic.
At that year's Technophobia, Charles announced that UCLA's packet submission tournament, which he named Aztlan Cup, would take place later in the year. March 6, 2004 was settled upon as the date for Aztlan Cup. Charles did almost all of the editing for UCLA, though various Berkeley people (possibly including Paul Lujan and Jerry Vinokurov) helped him with the science.
Initial distribution discussions included the possibility of having a gimmicky 1/1 Latino/Chicano theme requirement. This was scrapped before the official announcement.
Aztlan Cup continues to be a winter-quarter institution at UCLA.
ICT
- See article on 2004 ICT Division II Eligibility Scandal
UCLA competed at the 2004 NAQT West Sectionals in Division II and put up unheard-of numbers for a Division II team in a strong field, including PPTH and bonus conversion statistics above 23. UCLA assumed that the circuit was well aware of the deal it had made the previous year, responding to a last minute request for a team to fill out the 2003 ICT Division II field. Under the terms of the deal, any team accepting this last-minute bid would retain Division II eligibility unless it won the tournament.
Largely due to a communication mixup from NAQT, which, among other things, listed UCLA as having accepted the 2003 bid under apparently the same circumstances as the other Division II teams, the circuit in general had in fact never been made aware of this deal, and a backlash against UCLA's apparent violation of the Division II eligibility rules followed.
UCLA rejected NAQT's offer to convert their bid to Division I and instead played in Division II, where they felt they had every right to play. At the ICT, UCLA took an early loss to Harvard before running the table in the championship bracket, with their closest match a last-second, come-from-behind win over Carleton College. UCLA then defeated Illinois 385-200 in the first game of an advantaged final to win the championship.