Irvine : UCI College Bowl Team Advances to Sectionals

UC Irvine is the regional winner of the annual College Bowl “brainpower” contest, winning the right to advance to the sectional competition March 22 at the University of Utah. Sectional winners compete in the national finals in May.

UCI was runner-up in the College Bowl regionals the past two years.

College Bowl is a question-and-answer contest that stems from a national television show of about 30 years ago.

UC Irvine’s “All-Star Team” beat UC Berkeley over the weekend to advance to the sectionals. The team members are Tom Grant, a graduate student in political science; Mark Sugars, a graduate student in classics; Richard Miller, a junior in physics, and Mike Ontko, a junior in mechanical engineering.

Marti Barmore, student activities coordinator at UCI and coach of the team, said Tuesday that “UC Berkeley was definitely the toughest” of the teams that UCI met during the sectional competition at Cal State Fresno.

“We lost to them once, but since it was a double-elimination contest, we weren’t out unless we lost a second time,” said Barmore. “The second time we played UC Berkeley, we beat them 295 to 155.” That was the winning and final round for UCI.

The College Bowl questions are a sort of academic “Trivial Pursuit.” Questions range from geography to sports.

“Sports was our weakest area,” Barmore said. “Our team needs to read up on some old Sports Illustrated (magazines).”