FMU’s seventh annual President’s Bowl was held throughout the month of February in the Lowrimore Auditorium in the Cauthen Educational Media Center.
After fourteen matches spread across five days, the team Acids Are Based, representing the American Chemistry Society (ACS), took the President’s Bowl cup, beating their opponent All Out Nerds, representing the student organization TAOCATNA.
As is tradition, the President’s Bowl was split among two brackets: the Patriot bracket and the Samp Fox bracket. The first matches in the Patriot bracket occurred on Feb. 5, with the Swamp Fox bracket following on Feb. 6. The final match took place on Feb. 26, in which the team Acids Are Based won against All Out Nerds with a score of 85-75.
Acids Are Based received a first-place prize of $2,000, while All Out Nerds received the second-place prize of $1,000. The two semifinalist teams, The Manhattan Project, representing the Society of Physics Students and the fraternity Tau Kappa Epsilon (TKE), each won $250 for their respective organizations.
TKE also won an extra $500 from the MVP award, which was given to member Caleb Kirby. The MVP award, introduced during last year’s President’s Bowl, is given to an individual who showcases great performance, sportsmanship and enthusiasm.
The President’s Bowl is a series of matches based on trivia with topics ranging from history, art, politics and more. Each match has 14 questions, several of which are bonus questions that allow teams to gain more points.
“It was an extremely close match and very nervewracking the entire time,” Dani Conti, senior chemistry major and member of Acids Are Based, said. “It was a good game and I’m proud of my team for coming this far and getting the win for our American Chemical Society on campus once again.”
The team credits their win to their many members as well as their advisor, Diana Jenkins, who coached them through practicing questions and preparing for each match.
“I’d like to say that our win was achieved through efforts not just by us on the team, but also with the help of our team’s advisor and coach who had us meet once a week to do some practice with example quiz bowl packets,” Logan Dowdell, junior chemistry major and Acids Are Based teammate, said. “I’d like to give Dani Conti the credit for being our go-to for arts-based questions, Jameel Montgomery for being our religion and mythology go-to and Patrick Belt for being our go-to for history and politics, Derric Bradford for being our emotional support and Ms. Diana Jenkins for helping us get all of the prep work in.”
One of the rules for the prize money from the President’s Bowl is that the winning team must decide unanimously what to do with the prize money.
“So far, we haven’t decided on what to use the bulk of it on, but we have used some of it for pizzas for an ACS Oppenheimer movie day, and we’ll be using another portion of it to buy a thank-you gift for Ms. Jenkins,” Dowdell said. “Other than that, we’ll likely be using it for remodeling the chemistry student lounge and buying supplies for the labs on the chem floor.”
The Chemistry Department has won several President’s Bowls in the past, winning the first two President’s Bowls in 2018 and 2019. The Chemistry Department also won in 2021.
“President’s Bowl is such a fun program,” Jennifer Titanski-Hooper, director for the McNair Institute and organizer of the President’s Bowl, said. “It’s great to see so many student organizations and programs come out to compete, and the energy this year was amazing. We will start recruiting teams for the 2025 season in November, so everyone should be on the lookout for signups this fall.”