History> 1997-1998 The Year After the Second Year

Up to this point, most of the club duties had been fulfilled by Robert and Trevor. The travel arrangements, team decision making, room reservations and such were all handled by the two of them. Things were changing though. Iowa Quiz Bowl was being kicked out of its old digs as part of IMU Marketing/IMU Administration and would now go down the hall to be part of the Office of Student Life. And the team, at a summer get-together at Mary's, voted to take all of the hassle off of Trevor and Robert's hands and divvy the duties of the club up into appointed positions. And with a big increase in the competitive budget, the future looked good for Iowa Quiz Bowl.

Unlike the previous year, this season kicked off with relatively little influx. The biggest addition to the team was campus tournament veteran Evelyn Browne who had competed with Honors House teams for many years but hadn't made the leap to invitational play until this year. She led a mini-contingent of honors house players to the team including Ryan Jorgenson, Heena Maisieri, and Kevin Dean. But it would be two later additions that would add the most flavor to the team: Mike Ose, fresh from high school play, and Andrea Tawil, an export from that other Big 10 power (we guess), Michigan.

This fall season was the busiest on record. After the campus tournament, Iowa sent two teams to the Wash U. invitational and gave Trevor a small stipend to fly to Lansing, Michigan to compete at MSU's Buzz-a-Rama that same weekend. A team of Aaron, James, Bob and Brett made the playoffs at Wash U. while Trevor, playing solo , logged 2 victories, 4 close losses, and was named MVP of the tournament in Lansing. The following weekend, Robert, Mary, Trevor and Erin Gansen (Trevor's former student) played heroically but finished 3rd among all teams in a master's tournament at Illinois (but they did actually win the collegiate portion — so that also technically counts as a win). Robert continued his winning ways at Deep Bench, winning first singles for the 3rd consecutive year while Trevor was one match away from becoming the first person besides Robert to win a singles/doubles category (finishing 2nd in 2nd singles). The team, sadly, once again, finished a disappointing 5th overall, eliciting the frustrating cry that it's never possible to get all 8 of Iowa's best players to the Deep Bench at the same time.

Somewhere in this season, Corey Smith held another high school tournament with DOUBLE the teams — 53 in all. The 12 hour marathon tournament raked in a huge amount of money but left Corey vowing never to run a high school tournament again. The season thus continued with 2 teams being sent to the ISUGAR that featured NAQT tour questions. The Iowa A team of Trevor, Matt, Wade and Bob won a trophy for finishing 3rd. On the heels of that was a strong 4th place finish for the team of Evelyn, Aaron, Trevor and Corey (in a rare appearance) at the inaugural NAQT Big 10 tournament. Matt, James and Mary logged a great record as an exhibition team but did not earn a final finish as they were ineligble. Erin, Kevin, Andrea and Nichol fought bravely but finished 17th in a tough field.

The winter half of the season saw a busy February — Iowa made waves in each of the tournaments it attended. At the Wisconsin Elvis, Robert, Trevor, Nichol and Ninah went through the 18 game prelims leading the field but then lost in the [stupid] single-elim semis. Robert was named MVP. At this tournament, Trevor lamented to Carleton's Andy Felton that he personally would never win an invitational tournament. The following weekend, Trevor — after more than 30 tries — finally won a tournament: the NAQT sectionals at Rolla. Aaron, Mary and Wade fought with Trevor through a decent field and emerged with a perfect 13-0 record, much to the team's satisfying delight. This would also be Mary's first invitiational win and Aaron and Wade's 2nd (after the 1997 CBI R10). This was followed by a respectable 2nd place finish by an Iowa team of Trevor, Wade, Ninah and Nichol at the CBI R10 in Storm Lake. Trevor was named MVP and Wade also became an all-star. At ACF Regionals the following weekend, Iowa placed 6th in an unusually strong field, making it into the championship bracket and going an unheard of 3-0 against Michigan teams.

Only one tournament remained for the hawks — the NAQT ICT in Nashville. Through an NAQT rule loophole, James Erwin became eligible to compete and joining Aaron, Mary and Trevor, the four of them returned intact after the '97 ICT. After Trevor and Aaron were irritatingly rerouted after a string of travel snafus, James and Mary competed as a duo on Friday night. By the time Aaron and Trevor had arrived, Iowa was in 39th place. On the Saturday of the competition, Iowa emerged from the depths and closed with a narrow victory over Carleton in the final ladder match to secure that coveted 16th spot — a full 8 places higher than the year before in a smaller but much more proficient field. The year ended with Iowa hosting the now famous and cherished "This Tournament Goes To 11", another crazy brainchild of Trevor's that turned out to be one of the most innovative and well-liked tournaments that the circuit had ever seen. Another year was done and it was Iowa's most successful yet.