Harvard Team Wins College Bowl

Fatigue was the Harvard College Bowl team's toughest opponent as it swept through the 38-team field at the Academic Competition Federation last weekend.

Harvard garnered the national championship by defeating Georgia Tech two games to one in the final after tallying 15 consecutive victories in earlier rounds.

"We were just going on adrenaline," said Captain John J. Todor '95.

Lack of funds forced the team to travel to the tournament, which was held in Knoxville at the University of Tennessee, as inexpensively as possible.

This meant members had to wake up at 4 a.m. Friday to drive to Hartford, where the students caught a flight to Atlanta. Team members then rode with the Georgia Tech coach for four hours to Knoxville.

Once they arrived, the team competed 18 of the next 24 hours, according to Todor.

"You say to yourself, 'I did all this work to get here. I might as well do the best I can,'" said Cyrus C. Mody '97. "We definitely wanted to make the most of the trip."

A recent Internet poll had ranked three other teams, including Georgia Tech, ahead of Harvard, Todor said.

But despite a difficult final round, Harvard had little difficulty against most of its opponents.

"We knew we had the talent, but we hadn't done this format this year," Todor said.

Led by tournament MVP Jeff Johnson, a graduate student in English who averaged seven "tossups" per game (each game consists of 20 toss-ups), Harvard averaged double its opponent's score.

"The biggest obstacle we faced was the length of the tournament," Todor said.

The team prepared for the tournament by reviewing questions from past tournaments at their weekly meetings.

"We kind of pride ourselves on not working too hard," Mody said. "We're proud of the fact that we can come in and not have to commit facts to memory."

The team must now prepare for its other major national competition, the College Bowl Incorporated (CBI), which occurs in three weeks. Unlike last weekend's competition, CBI has timedrounds and features fewer academic questions.

Todor said the format of the ACF tournament waswell-suited for the team.

"It played toward our strength in academicknowledge, and separated teams based on theirlevels of knowledge," Todor said. "Othertournaments are more a test of momentum.

Todor said the format of the ACF tournament waswell-suited for the team.

"It played toward our strength in academicknowledge, and separated teams based on theirlevels of knowledge," Todor said. "Othertournaments are more a test of momentum.