By: Carson Reider '15
The glasses and utensils were clinking. The smell of fresh chicken wings, smothered in an assortment of sauces and spices, wafted through the air. (Hungry now?)
This wasn’t an ordinary visit to local wings joint, Leghorns. This was O’Malley Cup Trivia.
The Class of 2014, their eyes glinting at the chance at immortal glory, entered O’Malley Cup Trivia with the opportunity to clinch the 2013-14 O’Malley Cup after narrowly escaping a furious comeback by the first-years in basketball. Meanwhile, the Class of 2015 looked to enjoy some beverages, free food, and the camaraderie that comes with searching the indices of sports encyclopedias within their craniums.
Questions regarding college basketball and football, hockey, professional football (with a CFL question for our Canadian amigos), baseball, Olympics, and the Wide World of Sports—which was quite the doozy of a category—trudged along. Like a World War I battle, the two classes would fire off their answers and patiently wait for their scores to be tallied, reload, and launch another assault of answers.
Like Dave Wottle’s race in the 1972 Olympic 800m final, the Class of 2015 trailed behind early and entered the straightaway trailing 114-82. The calculating of the final score in Final Jeopardy Final O’Malley Trivia was an extremely convoluted method of wagering points that would’ve made Ken Jennings of Jeopardy fame scratch his head.
The Final O’Malley Trivia question was: “What are the four universities that have had alumni in the Oval Office and as Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks? Name the university, the president, and the quarterback.” Go on, answer it. I've made it easy for you.
The team known as Voldemort, led by Anna Jensen, wife of trivia master Packy Moran (*subterfuge!*), answered questions faster than IBM’s Watson computer and entered the final round with 47 points.
First-year team, Bubble Guppies, entered the last leg with an astonishingly low 14 points, indicative of their inability to answer many of their questions. It was befitting that they didn’t even get their wager right.
Outrageous Fun, another first-year team, held their own with 36 points entering the final round. To compound the convolution, they wagered “$Texas”, a submission that hadn’t been seen since Burt Reynolds tried to best Alex Trebek in Jeopardy on Saturday Night Live. Simply stunning.
Unlike Dave Wottle’s 1972 800m Olympic final race, however, the Class of 2015 weren’t able to pass the Class of 2014, falling 99 to 42.25.
Voldemort finished the trivia contest with more points than the combined score of their classmates’ groups, as well as the composite first-year class score.
No solatium was given to the first-years, who are already vigorously training to rampage through the 2014-15 O’Malley Cup like Sylvester Stallone as Rocky Balboa in Rocky, Rocky II, Rocky III, Rocky IV, and Rocky V.
As always, we express our thanks to Patrick Scott for organizing this final O'Malley Cup contest, as well as to Joseph Watkins and Lucas Topolie for getting this leg of the Cup hosted as Leghorns. Additional thanks goes out to Packy Moran for serving as Alex Trebek.
Until next year, we bid the O’Malley Cup adieu.
