My Street Academy trivia team has participated in the annual Big Brothers Big Sisters “Big Brains” trivia tournament for the past three years. In doing so, we’ve raised a lot of money for the organization, and we’ve had a great time in doing so.
Last night, my team – which included my friends Donna and Dylan from my old “We Are Your Nemesis … Fear Us!” squad of last year, and my buddy Ed (he plays on the team “A Few Cards Short of a Deck”), got together at Recovery Room Troy to take on several other teams and show what we know.
The rounds worked like this. Five rounds, ten questions per round, one point per correct answer with several questions offering bonus points for multiple correct answers.
First round category – pop culture. The first few questions were easy – who were the teams in the Super Bowl, who won “Best Drama” at the Golden Globes (Boyhood), who were the current host of The Voice (Blake Shelton, Adam Levine, Gwen Stefani, Pharrell Williams, natch).
Then there was a question about the song that contains these lyrics:
I never miss a beat
I’m lighting up my feet
And that’s what they don’t see
It wasn’t coming to me. No song that I recognized.
And then Ed leaned over and said, “I know the song. It’s this song.”
And sure enough, he was on point. With bonus answers, we finished the first round with 14 out of a possible 15 points. One team was ahead of us with a perfect round.
The next round involved sports. We had to know the youngest man to ever become heavyweight boxing champion (Mike Tyson), who the Super Bowl trophy was named after (Vince Lombardi), the oldest tennis tournament (Wimbledon, thanks Ed), among other things. Had we actually gotten last year’s NBA MVP (we wrote down Dirk Nowitzki, crossed it out, changed it to LeBron James, handed it up, it was Kevin Durant), we would have had another perfect round. As it was, with bonuses, we finished 11 out of 12, and that one team is still one point ahead ahead of us.
But it was the third round – history – that gave us the forward oomph.
“Who was the first Vice President of the United States?”
Ed leaned over. “It’s John Adams.”
“I thought Washington didn’t HAVE a Vice President,” I replied.
“No he did,” said Ed. “I know this one.”
Donna confirmed it. “We bought Ed a book of Presidential trivia for his birthday. He probably memorized it when he was in the bathroom.”
Hey… who hasn’t “memorized things” while being in the bathroom?
Those were correct. And then came a super-tough question that threw us.
“Who ‘opened’ and who ‘closed’ the Woodstock Music Festival in 1969?”
This was tough. And I tried replaying all the acts that participated in Woodstock that weekend. Sha Na Na. Jefferson Airplane. The Grateful Dead.
And then it hit me. This guy closed the show…
But it was this guy – who I don’t think anybody in the room knew – that OPENED the show.
And I remembered – Richie Havens performed for hours because the rest of the performers at Woodstock couldn’t get to the venue due to the New York State Thruway jammed up for miles.
The fourth category was local history – and that meant ten questions about Troy. Donna and Ed looked at each other – both of them grew up in Troy, Ed was an RPI graduate, in addition – and they just pounded out all ten questions in the category. Donna knew that the special tour to visit Troy’s windows was the Tiffany Stained Glass tour; while Ed knew that the New York State University in Troy was Hudson Valley Community College (as a proud alum of RPI, he knew that RPI was not a “state university,” but an “institute” – big difference).
We now had a two-point lead with ten questions in the fifth category to go.
“So long as we get at least nine out of ten right,” I told my team, “we’ve got the money.”
Let’s put it this way. When the question involves a beverage that’s made with whiskey, vermouth and Angostura bitters, and Donna’s sliding a napkin with the word “Manhattan” on it, we got this.
And in the end, my Street Academy team finished with the high score and the prize of $200 – four $50 bills, one for each of my teammates and one for me.
All in all, it was a great night of fun, and we also raised money for Big Brothers Big Sisters, which is a charity in the Capital Region that does wonders for those who need a helping hand.
Oh yeah… it was also, for all intents and purposes, a tune-up for the upcoming Trivia Bowl XI. And even though I won’t have Ed or Donna or Dylan on my team when TBXI takes place…
I know that all of us will be ready when that tournament begins. For sure.
Chuck The Writer 