Andrew Yaphe was a collegiate quiz bowl player. As an undergraduate student, he attended the University of Virginia and played for its quiz bowl team. Subsequently, he enrolled in a doctoral program in English at the University of Chicago and played for its team; he then went to Stanford for law school, receiving his J.D. in 2010.
Career
Yaphe is widely considered the best player in the history of collegiate quizbowl, being the leading scorer on 6 ACF Nationals championship teams, 2 NAQT ICT Division I championship teams, and two NAQT ICT Division I runner-up teams. He also won a College Bowl title and was reportedly a very good high school player, though a paucity of records on high school quizbowl from that time precludes any further judgment.
As an undergrad at Virginia, Yaphe was on the championship teams at the 1997 and 1998 ACF Nationals.
Immediately after becoming a member of Chicago, he won the 1999 and 2000 ACF Nationals, only ending this four-year streak of championships by choosing to edit the 2001 ACF Nationals; he then won the 2004 ACF Nationals. Yaphe also won the 1999 and 2001 ICT and placed second at the 2000 and 2005 ICT.
Yaphe's run at Stanford may perhaps be his most impressive. During a period of greatly reduced activity, Yaphe led a team to a third place finish at the 2009 ACF Nationals and then a first place finish at the 2010 ACF Nationals.
Most importantly, Yaphe was the driving force in keeping ACF alive from 1997 onwards, and edited such tournaments as the 2000 ACF Regionals and 2005 and 2006 ACF Nationals. His recent role as NAQT editor has been a more complex phenomenon. Yaphe has been heavily involved in the writing and editing of NAQT's college tournaments (especially ICT) since 2010.
Yaphe was prominently featured in the 1999 New York Times "Total Recall" article, which included The University of Chicago's winning of the 1999 Midwest SCT.
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