College Bowl Valhalla

UPDATE NOTICE!!!

While I am still collecting information on all teams. I have stopped updating this version of the site. It will be replaced this Summer with a redesigned web page that will allow for easier access and multimedia information. The update will also include info gleaned from visits to several major college archives, as well as information sent in by College Bowl alumni or family. Please keep sending new information, and look for the new, and hopefully much improved, website at this location in August!

Introduction

This page is an attempt to recover the names of all players on the College Quiz Bowl radio show, the GE College Bowl TV show, and the College Bowl radio & TV show of the late 1970's. Though several hundred shows were broadcast, I currently have information on only a very small percentage of the teams. If you have any new information, please send it on. If you played on any of these teams, and have stumbled across this page, please contact me! I would love to include your memories on this page. College Bowl Company, Inc. also has a Player Alumni Database you may be interested in.

If you currently attend a school that played in any of these matches, you can contribute to this project. First, please go to the College Bowl history web page on the College Bowl site at http://www.collegebowl.com/schoolhistoryrptdlg.asp . This database includes all known appearances on the GE College Bowl TV show that ran from 1959 to 1970. Navigate the menu to find out if your school appeared on the show. If your school did appear, note the dates. Your school library should have copies of both the campus and the local newspapers of that era, in bound and/or microfilm form. The show was broadcast on a Sunday. Newspapers from the Friday before and the Monday or Tuesday after the broadcast will have game details, usually on the front page. Often, the names of the players and coaches of both competing teams will be listed. Send that information on, and your contribution will be noted. Any other fun facts you come across will also be included, space permitting. Partial information is certainly okay - it might help someone else remember the full story. For an outstanding example of a student who has done this, see Raza Panjwani's Columbia & Barnard history site at http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cbowl/History.htm .

Other information about your history can come from your alumni association, university archives, or library special collections. Also, there may be articles about the formation of the team that appeared several months before the broadcast. These may contain the names of other alternates, coaches, helpers, etc.

Unfortunately, no complete list of the schools that appeared on the late-1970's radio show is available at this time. Anyone who can help with such information is urged to contact me. A photo and caption below on this page lists four teams and two players known to have participated, and an ad in the October 15, 1979 issue of Time Magazine also lists those four teams and two others.

In addition to specific sources mentioned with each team, the GE College Bowl match database on the College Bowl web site and The College Bowl Quiz Book by Carol Nasr also were mined for information. And special thanks to Mary Oberembt of College Bowl Company, Inc. for providing additional data. Information on the College Quiz Bowl radio show comes from recordings of the broadcast and contemporary articles in Time, Life, and Good Housekeeping magazines.

Copyright note: This is a non-profit free site designed and intended for educational use. Images on this site are linked to or reproduced under "fair use" provisions except where otherwise noted. Readers of this site are advised that College Bowl Company, Inc. claims various rights and marks on all College Quiz Bowl, GE College Bowl, and College Bowl broadcasts. They and/or other entities may have claims on various images as well. All rights to all other content here are claimed by the site creator and maintainer.

College Quiz Bowl NBC Radio 1953-1955

Premiered October 10, 1953 on the NBC Radio Network. It was a "sustainer," without a major sponsor for the 26 matches of the first season, though Longine Wittnauer provided watches for players through the entire run. Good Housekeeping magazine came on board as primary sponsor at the start of the 1954-55 season, and began a monthly page featuring questions from the show. Players included future financial guru Louis Rukeyser, who answered for Princeton a toss-up about Wall Street Bears in March, 1954. Many shows, perhaps most of the entire run, survive; and a recording exists of the never-broadcast second game of the Season 2 Georgetown v. Minnesota series. That Minnesota team was featured in the February 7, 1955 issue of Time Magazine. The April 4, 1955 issue of Life Magazine has a feature on the Colgate v. Cornell match with some funny photos. The article concludes with the hope that the show will be on NBC TV the next season. The second season was extended, and then condensed and rerun over the Summer of 1955; and a third radio season began the following September. Good Housekeeping ended its sponsorship after the second show of the new season. A web page on this show is under construction, and will contain the full list of sources and references, interviews with players and production staff, and other fun things. While it's being developed, you can click here for a list of shows known to be broadcast and known to survive.

General Electric College Bowl CBS 1959-1962, NBC 1962-1970

GE College Bowl broadcasts known to survive:

Oregon State's library may have a film of one or more games (#142-144). See http://osulibrary.oregonstate.edu/archives/archive/film/P017inv.html

Skidmore College's library may have a copy of their 2/26/61 match (#81) against Farleigh Dickinson. See http://www.skidmore.edu/irc/library/collections/pohndorff/vfilesBC.htm under "Broadcast."

In an interview at http://www.lafayette.edu/news.php/view/103/ , Robert E. Jones says that he has a phonograph record with an audio recording of one of Lafayette's games (#133-137).

Do the University of Missouri - Columbia's 1967-68 matches (#323-324) against New Jersey City University and Pittsburgh still exist? This tantalizing entry of "Programs" in the university archives may or may not mean a copy of the broadcasts: http://www.system.missouri.edu/archives/c-rg1-s91.html Series Three - University Events and Activities (cont'd) Box 2 item FF 14, about the middle of the page.

Kinescopes of all five Portland State 1964-65 matches (#222-226) reside in the Portland State University Archives. Thanks to Jim Westwood for the tip.

An audio tape of the December, 1963 Bowdoin v. Butler match (game #182) is in a private collection in California. Thanks to Barry Resnick for the tip. UCLA also has this match in their archives.

At least three of Bradley's 1969 matches (#378-382) survive in private collections. Thanks to Rick Cloyd for the tip.

Three of Davidson's five 1969 matches survive in their college archives (Arizona, Wesleyan, and Dillard - #368-369, #371), and copies are in a private collection. Thanks to Sam Gwynn for the tip.

An audio tape of the legendary Princeton-Agnes Scott match (#261) survives in the posession of the College Bowl Company. Thanks to Mary Oberembt for the tip. They have a few other matches that have recently come into their posession; including Colgate v. Trinity (#295) and Goucher v. Gonzaga (#363).

At least two matches of Bates College's legendary seven wins survive: their first, the 1960-61 season win against Muhlenberg (#95); and their last, the 1961-62 season win against Wheaton (#110). Thanks to Jeffrey Tulis for the pointer to this article on the team's 1993 reunion: http://www.bates.edu/x51261.xml .

And now, the teams (note that schools commonly referred to as "University of..." are listed under "U"):

General Electric College Bowl Teams: A - E

General Electric College Bowl Teams: F - O

General Electric College Bowl Teams: P - T

General Electric College Bowl Teams: U - Y

College Bowl CBS Radio 1977?-1980, syndicated TV 1979-80?

Press release photo and text courtesy of Greg Trandel

Hosted by Art Fleming. The above photo, from a private collection, is about all the information I have right now on this incarnation. The press release attached to the back reads: "CBS Radio Network COLLEGE BOWL host Art Fleming (r.) congratulates Peter Heller (l.) and Matthew Kupstas (c.), two students on the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill) COLLEGE BOWL team.  By defeating Northwestern, Ohio State and Penn State in three successive weekly COLLEGE BOWL games broadcast on the CBS Radio Network, North Carolina this week (Oct. 22-28) became the first college to qualify for the 1980 National COLLEGE BOWL Championships to be held next summer.  COLLEGE BOWL, an intercollegiate quiz program, is heard on [station] on [day] at [time]. (Editor: Please check with local station for day and time of broadcast.) Photo by David Sacks University of Charleston (Charleston, W. Va.)" A full-page ad for the show in the October 15, 1979 issue of Time Magazine lists MIT and Columbia among the other teams competing.

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Last modified Sunday, May 28, 2006 12:24:42 PM