Re: Ray Hamel

ehillema · Wed, 20 Oct 1999 07:14:01 -0700

Ray hasn't been an academic quiz team player,
though he has moderated or scorekept on occasion at
Wisconsin's Elvis tournament. He would be a TRASH legend if
he were ever to play that circuit, however -- the
National Trivia Bowl in Colorado that his team won in 1986
was our game with the categories Movies, Music, TV,
Sports, and Miscellaneous; basically what TRASH is now.
(When a Madison team led by Ray won that in 1986 it was
the same year that Wisconsin won the College Bowl
national championship, making Madison the quizzing capital
of the U.S. that year, anyway.) Ray is a walking
encyclopedia with regard to movies (he was working on editing
a film encyclopedia some while ago), and no slouch
in all the pop culture/sports categories, I believe.
I'm not sure just how he'd do in the non-TRASH areas,
but probably not too badly, he being an intelligent
and generally knowledge-filled guy, with a longtime
job in a science library.

Ray's bio mentions
the Team Trivia Faceoff that he and Dale Jellings ran
for five years at Wisconsin. I was part of the
winning team for that two or three times, along with
Wisconsin coach Mark Zimmer and others. It was fun! Lots of
great audio and visual material for both tossups and
bonuses across the "TRASH" subjects.

Ray did send
me email after this summer's Mad City Masters asking
to be sent the announcement next summer if I repeat
that tournament--a straight masters tourney with
NAQT-like subject distribution--(as I expect I will) so Ray
may well be encountered playing the academic game
there in summer 2000. I had the pleasure of being his
teammate once, circa 1990, for an informal get-together in
Madison to play trash subjects with two-person teams, and
yes, we won all our matches--probably what would have
happened for Ray even if playing solo.

The Carleton
team's website, by the way, includes a link to Ray's
Quiz site, at
<a href=http://www.primate.wisc.edu/people/hamel/trivia.html. target=new>http://www.primate.wisc.edu/people/hamel/trivia.html.</a>