Meet Columbia's NBC 'College Bowl' Team

Upper West Side NY

27 August, 2021

12:02 PM

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Columbia Daily Spectator BY BELLA DRUCKMAN AUGUST 26, 2021 They hopped off the plane at Los Angeles International Airport with a dream—and some hesitations. Four strangers: Shomik Ghose, SEAS '23; Tamarah Wallace, CC '22; Addis Boyd, SEAS '22; and Jake Fisher, SEAS '22, met for the first time to compete in the Capital One "College Bowl" competition. After a 51-year hiatus, the "College Bowl" trivia competition is back. Airing weekly on Tuesdays, the quiz show features hosts Cooper and Peyton Manning along with 12 college teams from around the country showing off their knowledge to win $1 million in scholarship money toward their tuition. Three players make up each team along with an alternate. "I remember I was talking to Cooper about what I was doing over the summer," Fisher said. "I was like, 'Wait, like what? What am I doing? I'm talking to Cooper Manning about what I'm doing over the summer.'" Recruiting for the game show for trivia fiends began in fall 2020. Between Facebook and Instagram direct messages and pointed referrals, NBC's casting team reached out to Columbia students who could potentially represent their school in the competition. Whereas Ghose and Fisher were scouted for their quiz bowl experience, Boyd's girlfriend referred him, and Wallace hypothesizes that they found her by searching through Columbia students' Instagram accounts. Despite varying levels of trivia experience, most team members reacted to the casting director's messages with skepticism. "[The casting director] messaged me, and I wasn't sure if it was a scam or something," Fisher said. "I was like, 'Oh well, I'll just go through with this, and if they start asking me for my social security number, that's when I'll get out.'" Eventually, Columbia's prospective contestants interviewed with show casting directors to discuss their personality and trivia knowledge. Whereas Wallace's trivia knowledge consisted of random research rabbit holes, Boyd watched Steve Harvey. In contrast, Ghose competed on his quiz bowl team throughout most of middle school and high school. In high school, Ghose placed ninth at the quiz bowl national competition organized by Partnership for Academic Competition Excellence. Upon graduation, he went on a trivia hiatus, planning to only return if he could compete on "Jeopardy!". However, the Capital One "College Bowl" competition prompted his early return to the trivia world. The opportunity to meet the Manning brothers further enticed Ghose to dust off his trivia materials for the first time in two years. "[Quiz bowl] was almost like a sport for me," Ghose said. "I sometimes studied 10 hours a week, 15 hours a week at some points—quite intensely I would say. But when I got to Columbia, I still loved it. It's just [that] I found some new things that I wanted to explore." Fisher's quiz competition experience was similar to that of Ghose. Obsessed with trivia since he was a child, Fisher joined his high school's quiz bowl team and served as captain for two years. During his first year of college, he joined Columbia University Quiz Bowl, a nationally ranked team that finished first and second at two major national collegiate tournaments this year. However, because competitions were both intense and frequent, he quit the team during his sophomore year to pursue other interests. With a team assembled, the four Columbia students made their way to Los Angeles the last week of February. The team quarantined for a week before competing. The first time the team saw each other without masks was on the competition floor. During the quarantine week, Ghose, Fisher, Wallace, and Boyd finished their midterms and strategized for the competition. Another audition occurred in which NBC staff selected Ghose as the team captain and Boyd as the alternate. Boyd acknowledged that even though he served as team alternate, the chemistry all four students had was incredibly important. Since Boyd watched gameplay from another room, his teammates noted they often hypothesized about his reactions while they were on stage. They emphasized that he was an important member of the team despite his alternate role. "We really wanted to hone our strategy for the show: how we were going to compete, who should answer what," Boyd said. "If somebody has the answer, how we're going to tell each other and then who's going to communicate that answer. … I think it was a full-team process. So even though I was the alternate, I definitely helped with that process." On Aug. 24, Columbia defeated Auburn University in the "College Bowl" semifinals. Tune in at 10 p.m. on Sept. 7 to see if Columbia reigns victorious against the University of Southern California in the championship round. Editor's note: Tamarah Wallace is the publisher at Spectator. She was not involved in the writing or editing of this article. Deputy Editor Bella Druckman can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @bella_druckman. Founded in 1877, the Columbia Daily Spectator is the independent undergraduate newspaper of Columbia University, serving thousands of readers in Morningside Heights, West Harlem, and beyond. Read more at columbiaspectator.com and donate here.