The quiz bowl is a long-standing college competition held twice a year and the Institute has had a heavy hand in its creation. Robert L. Meredith, an assistant professor of English, at the Institute facilitated much of the innovation and regulation that formed the current quiz bowl.
Meredith was once chosen to compete in the College Bowl as a student at the University of Kentucky. Unfortunately, due to scheduling issues, he was never able to do so. However, in 1973 he started coaching the Institute’s team.
In the mid-80s, there were several complaints about the College Bowl format and schools had started backing out of events. During this time, Meredith had proposed a new standard match format, giving rise to a whole new game: The Quiz Bowl.
The Academic Competition Federation (ACF) was created with the purpose of being a governing body that has been tasked with hosting modern-day competitions and upholding the current rules of academic competitions. As a forefather to the ACF, the national championship trophy is named the Meredith Cup, in honor of Meredith.
Meredith has coached the Georgia Tech team to three pre-ACF quiz bowl victories. He also cracked the first official “All American Invitational” during which the Institute beat Emory to come out on top.
He ended his coaching career on a high note, where in the 1988-89 season, both of Georgia Tech’s teams podiumed (first and second).
Tech has consistently had a strong roster of quiz bowl competitors but has not seen victory since 1996, until now. After besting the top 51 teams in the nation, Tech was victorious and brought the Meredith cup back home for the first time this year since Meredith’s passing in 2005.
This year seemed to be shaping up to be successful from the start. The quiz bowl’s A team placed first in the Georgia Collegiate Novice Invitational with an undefeated record.
Consequently, in Division I of the NAQT Southeast Sectional, the team placed second, which built up to their victory of the Undergraduate title at the 2022 Intercollegiate Championship Tournament.
Hari Parameswaran, Tech’s very own captain, was recognized as the Top Undergraduate Player for having the most points per question.
They were an unstoppable force on their way to the playoffs. Out of seven qualifying rounds, the team had only dropped one to the eventual overall winners (Stanford). The playoffs were a much different story. They proceeded to lose five straight games, until ending with a win against Vanderbilt. The team ended up tied for sixth overall and placed first out of all undergraduate teams.
This team of eight Institute students, Sanjay Srihari, Quentin Mot, Hari Parameswaran, Tegan Kapadia, Matthew Bollinger, S. A. Shenoy, Alexander Li and Rodrigo Rose, brought a national championship title to the school and will hopefully continue to honor Meredith’s legacy.