Tonight is the end of a personal trivia career, win or lose.

It seems like an eternity ago.

But nearly twenty years ago, I stopped into the Hooters at Crossgates Mall on a Tuesday night, and played competitive team trivia as a one-man team – and finished the night in third place, winning a bucket of chicken wings that would have fend a four-man squad.

That was the start.

Since then, my Street Academy trivia team – named after my high school – became a local team trivia juggernaut. Two local Trivia Bowl championships. FIVE local Summer Bowl trivia championships. Two World Tavern Trivia championships in three appearances. A couple of $1,000 triumphs in the Elbo Room Trivia Tournament.

Along the way, I met some wonderful people – trivia opponents and trivia teammates, many of whom are still my friends today.

But over the past few years, I’ve pared down my trivia competition. Because my team has won Trivia Bowl and Summer Bowl, I’ve earned a lifetime entrance to the yearly tournaments. so I play on those whenever I can.

But the weekly games … I haven’t played the weekly games in a very long while. There were several factors in this – I dealt with several health issues, including some surgeries that kept me from going to weekly competitions. The COVID-19 pandemic and shutdown also made me wary of participating in large groups for a time.

And most recently, after my vascular bypass and foot surgery kept me out of this year’s Trivia Bowl, I realized that it might be time to pack away my trivia titles. So I made a personal decision. Win or lose, tonight’s appearance at Summer Bowl will be the final appearance for the Street Academy Trivia Team.

A team that, for one more night, will be a squad with a single participant. Me.

I’ve had a really great time in the competitive bar trivia scene. I really have. But I have to know when to call it a day. And tonight will be that final night.

Here’s the thing. Over the past twenty years, competitive team trivia helped me through some really rough personal crises. Even when my life was in various levels of turmoil, I could pack those demons away for three hours and spend time testing my knowledge of useless minutiae against squads with names like Pork is a Verb, Clay Aiken’s Skid Marks, Lynch’s Mob, Tres Hombres, Nacho Punch, The Fist, a Few Cards Short of a Deck, My Couch Pulls Out, Short Bus Kids, Cartman’s Mom, and a multitude of other teams whose names were designed to titillate or taunt.

Trust me. It was fun.

But there comes a moment when we write our last chapter.

My last chapter, in terms of playing competitive team trivia … is tonight.

And I’m totally, totally fine with that.

One more game.

And as Apollo Creed said at the end of Rocky … “Ain’t gonna be no rematch.”