The fact that I’m writing this blog post means that what I did has been bothering me for a while now.
I’m not perfect. I’ve made mistakes. And Thursday night, at the Elbo Room trivia tournament finals, I made one of the biggest mistakes of my life.
No, I’m not talking about my team missing tons of questions and blowing the tournament.
It was the fact that I did something I thought I would never do.
I printed a map of South America as the back of one of my score sheets.
Now granted, a question did come up about South America in the tournament finals. And unfortunately, the map didn’t help – due to the fact that the question involved population rather than area size.
But here’s the thing. I should never have used that map. I should not have printed it out. It should never have been on my score sheet. It constituted an unfair advantage, a win-at-all-costs mentality that I thought I had gotten past in my life.
There’s plenty of excuses, but they aren’t enough to merit what I did. The fact that I got the answer wrong in the first place doesn’t excuse anything. And the fact that I did this one time and one time only doesn’t obviate anything either.
So with that in mind, let me take this moment to apologize to the organizers of the game, as well as to my teammates and to my opponents, for my actions, and to assure all of you that this will never happen again, not from my team or from me – ever.
And let’s get back to playing trivia.
Chuck The Writer 
Chuck,
Yea, its bad you did that. And if you had won the money because of it, it would have been downright horrible. Its good you came clean though, and I definitely have respect for that.
I am commenting, just more out of wonder than anything. You have been playing Baker trivia all this time, and you still have not sat down for the 20 minutes that it takes to memorize the map of South America?
Baker really does need to pick a new continent of interest. I almost blame him more for it than you, especially in a money game like that.
-Wayne
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If he had won the money would we have been reading a blog post about how he had cheated? Sure, I respect a cheater that comes clean…but I have a lot more respect for all the teams that don’t cheat.
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D357:relax….it’s not like he smuggled cia papers in his undies…..it was trivia….as in TRIVIAL…..
Chuck…don’t sweat it man, move on, we can all miss it now and then.one bad decision doesn’t make a person bad.
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The thing I can’t get past is that it wasn’t necessarily “coming clean.” I wonder if this post would have even happened if I and a couple others didn’t call him out on it in the first place.
Its not the end of the world. I do think he is genuinly apologetic (now). But quite honestly, I can’t help but be rubbed the wrong way by this. Outside of my own team, chuck is the last person I would expect this from. He’s probably the last person that needed to do something like this.
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Tony, D357 LIVES for stuff like this, which suggests that he has no life of his own.
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D357:
I agree with you, that I have more respect for the many teams that play the game fairly. Frankly, my entire opinion of Street Academy has changed after this, as I never saw them as cheaters before. I give him credit for admitting it, but I won’t ever look at Street Academy the same way as I used to.
Now, what I really do wonder is, if Chuck had won the money off of a South America geography question, would he have done the right thing, and given the money back? I want to think that he would have still came clean, and forfeited the prize. However, only one person truly knows the answer to that question.
-Wayne
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Trivia games ARE trivial to most teams…but not to Chuck. He usually just keeps score on a napkin so bringing a “scoresheet” with a map on it was really just bringing a map. His first comment about it had a little smiley face next to it so it didn’t start bothering him until he was called a cheater. He likes to refer to himself as a legacy team…well, we all make our own legacy. Now he has to live with his.
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