Courtesy of Elizabeth Lee

On February 9 at 8 p.m., I took a gamble and asked the slightly reserved man in the Coles Tower elevator if he was going to Quiz Bowl. The answer was yes.

Perhaps I could identify him using Neiman Mocombe’s ’26 description of fellow Quiz Bowl members as “nerdy, eccentric [and] unique.” Or perhaps I was just searching for a kind face before entering what I assumed was a club far above my pay grade as someone who can’t name all 50 states. Either way, I followed him into the Harrison McCann Lounge, equal parts intimidated and eager to absorb whatever knowledge might make me seem smarter in daily life.

Quiz Bowl is a team-based trivia competition covering literature, history, science and fine arts. The group meets on Mondays from 8 to 9 p.m. and travels to collegiate tournaments across New England, planning to send both an A and B team to three competitions this semester.

Club leader Graham Lucas ’26 has watched the organization transform. During his first year, meetings consisted of himself, three leaders and one other student, with most of their energy devoted to running pub trivia. Now, attendance has climbed to around ten members per meeting.

Lucas says he’s been pleasantly surprised by how many students with no prior experience have become active participants. Still, growth hasn’t solved everything. Mitra Hu-Henderson ’28 notes that she is one of the few women in the room, a gender imbalance she observes more broadly across collegiate Quiz Bowl.

Any intimidation I felt dissipated quickly. The meeting opened not with intense trivia drills but with a group analysis of KPOT in Bethesda, Md. (a deep dive into Lucas’s adolescence) before dissolving into catching up and animated debates about favorite classes. The room felt less like a competition hub and more like a living room. When Mocombe randomly left the room for an extended amount of time, returning with a semi-dramatic outfit change, I was the only person surprised, though I suspect all were impressed. When it came time to split into teams, members insisted Lucas read questions instead of playing, since his participation would “be unfair.”

Playing was far more exhilarating than I expected. Hu-Henderson told me her favorite part is “getting a question right because it’s very rare, [since] the questions are very hard.”

She was not exaggerating. I answered exactly one question (thank you, James Joyce), and the adrenaline rush was immediate. The entire room—even those not on my team—erupted in congratulations. It became clear that winning was secondary to the shared thrill of knowing something obscure at exactly the right moment.

That ethos defines Bowdoin’s team. They don’t practice outside of meetings. Tournaments are as much social outings as competitions. And while they’ve had notable successes—including a team record-setting performance at Yale last week—their pride seems rooted more in camaraderie than trophies.

Their traditions reflect that spirit. If a team scores zero points on a bonus question, it’s called a “bagel.” The team keeps track of their bagels throughout the year and spends the equivalent amount on actual bagels at the end-of-year celebration.

Quiz Bowl, it turns out, isn’t a room full of intimidating geniuses guarding esoteric knowledge. It’s a group of friends who get very excited about knowing things. I’ll be back on Monday—studying my states and maybe some organic chemistry too.