Trivia bowl quizzes hundreds from U. community

University affiliates answered questions, text messaged and tested their knowledge Wednesday night at the Cook/Douglass Recreational Center.
Styled after “Jeopardy!,” contestants of the 22nd annual “Trivia Bowl” answered questions to rounds such as sports, presidents, “name that tune,” entertainment and human anatomy. Throughout the night, bonus questions allowed participants a chance at different prizes.
“I enjoyed the categories. They were a little bit tougher this year than last year. Overall, it was fair,” said Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy student Kenneth Biason, whose team placed in second last year.
A new portion of the event included a text message battle.
“We included a new twist on trivia [by] adding [a] speed texting competition, which would be a feature event in the upcoming months,” said host Paul Fischbach, associate director of University Recreation.
The winning team this year included three University alumni: Daniel Benovitz and husband and wife duo Michael and Rachel Bal. Benovitz and Michael Bal have been competing in the event for the past 15 years, and Rachel Bal joined the team permanently four years ago. They won in 2007.
“We’ve made the final every year for the past four years except for the last year,” said Michael Bal, a Rutgers College and Graduate School of Education alumnus.
The event, which had more than 90 teams, including University students, alumni, faculty, staff and community members, incorporated ways to be more interactive. New to this year’s “Trivia Bowl” was a grading system based on the honor code, where teams graded each other’s answer sheets.
The new grading system was integrated so that teams could interact with each other and the event could run quicker, Fischbach said. It also helped the organizers with the final tallies.
“I like that [the text messaging competition] sped it up. Usually we’re here really late,” said Rachel Bal, a Rutgers College and Graduate School of Education alumna.
Members of the winning team received a $50 Visa gift card, a $15 iTunes gift card and movie tickets. After two rounds, one team won the raffle prize of three portable DVD players. Other bonus prizes included Frisbees, University rain jackets and more.
University Recreation organized the event, and the student-run group Recreation Activity Crew was also enlisted to help.
Group members helped supervise the scoring of the event and assisted in developing some of the categories.
Former group member Tim Carreras created the event in 1987.
“He proposed a trivia event that could be held here, similar to ‘Jeopardy!’ but interactive, fun and entertaining,” Fischbach said.
The “Trivia Bowl” is traditionally held every year on the week before Thanksgiving, he said.
 

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