When Quiz Bowl coach Peter Dangerfield first became a teacher at Park seven years ago, the club became an opportunity to connect with students while engaging in a passion.

“I love doing the trivia challenges at local restaurants, so Quiz Bowl seemed like a way to get involved in the school — to become a part of the community,” Dangerfield said. 

According to freshman Julia Lorenzen, the club is a place where people come together to embrace all types of shared interests.

“Being at practices is really fun, because we’ll go on tangents, talk and just have a good time,” Lorenzen said. “We can all really relate to each other because we have a bunch of crazy trivia knowledge.”

Quiz Bowl participates in tournaments and other competitions throughout the year, and they hold practices twice a week to hone trivia knowledge. Aside from competing, however, senior co-captain Truman Fillbrandt said having fun is a big focus on the team.

“It’s a pretty cool club. You don’t have to come to every practice. You don’t have to go to all the tournaments,” Fillbrandt said. “It’s a fun dynamic. You get a lot of bandwidth at the meets and practices, and half of it is goofing off.”

In spite of its inclusive, laid-back atmosphere, Fillbrandt said it has been hard to advertise the club and gain new members over the past year.

“Getting new people is our biggest challenge — just getting more people in the club,  and having them stay and actually come to tournaments. People have other obligations,” Fillbrandt said.

Quiz Bowl is played in teams of four, in which each teammate often has strengths and weaknesses. According to Dangerfield, this aspect of the competitions means that anyone can have valuable contributions to the team.

“Everybody’s an expert at something. It might be a really small thing, or it might be a really big thing,” Dangerfield said. “You might really love geography, or you might really love poetry, or you might really love sports, or you might really love math. And you don’t have to know everything to participate in Quiz Bowl because you have three other teammates you can rely on.”

According to Lorenzen, Quiz Bowl is an easy club to jump into, even for students who don’t have extensive trivia knowledge.

“Anyone can join Quiz Bowl. If you have any sort of specialized knowledge, then you can totally join and it’s a great time,” Lorenzen said. 

Quiz Bowl practices on Thursdays and Fridays after school in room A301. Students who want to sign up can come to a practice and speak with one of the co-captains: Truman Fillbrandt and Jacy Demcisak.