Kiwanis Sports Trivia Championship (Team Zealot still has a lot of work to do)

Today, the Champaign-Urbana Kiwanis held their 2nd annual Sports Trivia Championship.  Much as I’d like to think that this is an effort to humble me and my Team Zealot teammates, I just have to admit that their are a lot of guys out there who are smarter than me at least when it comes to sports trivia.  And I’m fine with that because I had a blast today regardless of the outcome. 

I won’t tell you how bad Team Zealot (myself, Shawn Lee, and team newcomer Nick Zahos) did other than to say that we didn’t come in last  (whew!).  The questions were tougher in my opinion, from last year’s inaugural Sports Trivia Championship.  During the halfway break, we were mentally exhausted. 

They did give us the answers to the first half’s questions during the break and while they were tough, I think we caught a break and got a lot of lucky answers (including questions like what was the height of the Illinois state high school record high jump… we got that through pure luck).  We really weren’t in the running by the halfway point but I thought we did ok. 

Overall, we generally scored 7 out of 10 on most categories.  Weak points for Team Zealot were (don’t hate us Illini fans) Illinois football (4 out of 10) and Illinois basketball (5 out of 10).  Ironically, we managed to score 8 on the NFL (I haven’t followed football religiously since the 80s).

The biggest trivia question surprise to us?  It was in the Major League Baseball category.  Ok, here’s the question:

Which franchise had the most players in the Hall of Fame?  The choices:  Yankees, Cardinals, Giants, Red Sox. 

I’ll tell you the answer later in the article.  I will say that I think all three of us agreed on the same answer and got it wrong anyway. 

Much kudos go to the winners named ‘Team Rain Delay’, who scored 83 out of 100 questions correctly.  If you think of it, they would have had to score eight or nine out of ten for each of the ten categories.  They had four members on their team so they will have to split that $1,000 check four ways.  Be nice, guys!

Thanks to Brian Barnhart who was the Master of Ceremonies.  Some of you may know Barnhart as the broadcaster for Illini football and basketball games.  Others may remember him from his days as broadcaster for the Angels in the late 90s.  He did an excellent job and quite honestly, kept the event going at a pretty good pace. 

Biggest thanks go to Jim Sheppard, longtime former public address announcer for Illini football and basketball games.  His work with Kiwanis to organize the Sports Trivia Championship to raise money for the service projects that they are involved should be recognized. 

Oh, the trivia question.  Which franchise had the most players in the Hall of Fame?  The answer is the Giants.  The lesson here is:  Don’t go with the obvious.  The three of us all thought it was the Yankees. 

Jim Sheppard told me that they plan to do a third Sports Trivia Championship next year.  Those in the East Central Illinois area should keep that in mind for a fun afternoon for a good cause.