Tejas Raje
Tejas Raje | |
Noted subjects | History, Trash |
Past colleges | Cornell (2009–14) |
Stats | HDWhite • NAQT |
Tejas Raje is a former player for Cornell best known for not being very good in college and then bizarrely becoming very good after finishing school. He is also well-known for being confused with other quizbowlers of Indian extraction, most often Naveed Chowdhury. As a student, his recorded statistics show a rather undistinguished career, peaking with his being the second scorer behind Ian Lenhoff on the Cornell team that finished in 16th place at 2014 ICT; that performance was so mediocre that he was ignominiously forced to play on the Canadian team that won zero games at that year's Chicago Open, on which he was the third scorer behind actual Canadians Jay Misuk and Patrick Liao.
Following this experience, Tejas evidently decided to get good, despite no longer being a student, and began regularly attending open events. At the following Chicago Open, he was the second scorer behind Douglas Yetman on a team that finished tenth out of a field of seventeen. Following a number of strong showings at open events during the following school year, at 2016 Chicago Open he teamed up with Rob Carson, Andrew Hart, and Billy Busse to tie for second place while individually finishing as the eleventh-highest scorer in preliminary rounds. The next day marked the pinnacle of Tejas's career, as he won Chicago Open Trash playing alongside Mike Cheyne, Kenji Golimlim, and Chris Manners.
Tejas additionally has the odd distinction of having won ACFNATIONALS, PACENSC (where he had buzzed on exactly 1 live tossup), and a CMST mirror, thus earning a Triple Crown-like achievement of winning three tournaments with misleading names (originally at the collegiate, high school, and middle school levels), and coming remarkably close to a nationals-lookalike Triple Crown (which would for now have to include "ICT", despite being uncompetitive shootouts on anything-goes vanity packets).