Background

Our coach first played this game while in grad school at the University of Wisconsin. The Wisconsin coach then and now is Mark Zimmer, Eric's good friend and original quiz bowl mentor. In 1986 Wisconsin won the College Bowl national championship, with Mark as coach and Eric filling the role of assistant coach/sparring partner. (He liked to style himself "Equipment manager and Defensive Coordinator.) When Eric came to Carleton in 1990 and offered his services as quiz team coach, he looked forward to future matchups with his coaching mentor at Wisconsin.

What Gives Here?

As of the date of this writing, through November 1998, Eric's career coaching record versus his old mentor now stands at 22-4 over eight seasons, considering only Carleton A foursomes versus Wisconsin A foursomes. This sort of dominance versus any team is unusual, but what boggles the mind in this case is that in most of those years Wisconsin has actually had the stronger team to all appearances, considering the rest of our records. The majority of those 22 wins would have to be considered "upsets" -- or at least they would be if both schools had not long ago accepted the fact that something very unusual happens whenever Carleton meets Wisconsin, almost always with the result that the Carleton team catches fire and one way or another winds up with the win. Wisconsin's coach Zimmer seems to have arrived, for the sake of his own sanity, at a very fatalistic acceptance of all this. Carleton's coach Hillemann maintained for years that the bizarre one-sidedness of all this could not last, but even he now just shakes his head in wonder as the victories continue to pile up, sometimes in implausible ways.

Some particular instances of the Charm or Curse (depends on your perspective)

The career record cited above does not even include some additional extraordinary manifestations of this strange power Carls seem to exert over Badgers, as it reflects only the record of Carleton's top foursomes versus Wisconsin's top foursomes. It is also the case that Carleton B teams have enjoyed an unexpected amount of success, not only against Wisconsin B teams, but even versus Wisconsin A -- Carleton B over Wisconsin A seems to be our most common big upset.

At the first two Deep Bench tournaments, for strategic reasons we elected to "tank" certain singles positions, calling on second-teamers basically to sacrifice themselves for the good of the greater cause. Ariel Stern at #1 singles in 1995 and Luke Beland at #2 in 1996 were designated victims, not really expected to win any matches at their positions. Each year though, our designated victim managed to pull off one big upset. Each year, that upset was a shocking victory over their Wisconsin counterpart.

A Carleton-Wisconsin matchup at the 1996 ACF Regional Championships was anybody's game going into the last tossup. The deciding question began, "Born in New York City, he graduated from the University of Wisconsin..." and our hearts began to sink. But then the charm or curse kicked in, as it almost always does, and one of the Wisconsin players interrupted the question with what can charitably be termed an "inadvisable" early guess, after which we went on to correctly answer "Abraham Maslow" at our leisure, and win the match.

Perhaps the clearest example that we are in the grip of the supernatural here came at the 1997 NAQT Championship Tournament. It was the final round of the tournament, and Wisconsin and Carleton, two pretty evenly matched teams that year, were swiss-paired to face one another for the difference between 35th and 37th place in the 64 team field. When the Wisconsin team came into the room and saw Carleton, they groaned, and said "Well, that's that, then." and "It figures." Nonetheless, they played well, and had a 45 point lead with seven seconds left to play in the game -- virtually a sure thing. But on what would be the final question, Carleton's Cheryl Klein scored the necessary power tossup, worth 15 points rather than the standard 10, and as time ran out Carleton scored all 30 points possible on the bonus to force the game into a three tossup overtime, where Carleton won it.

Is it Cerebrions?

Wisconsin's Willie Keller, looking at a whole career of losing to Carleton teams in strange ways, was the one who came up with the theory that it was "cerebrions" that are to blame. Apparently Carleton teams emit these rays or waves or some sort of psychic emanations that paralyze Wisconsin players, at least at crucial moments, and frequently cause them to buzz in with ill-advised wild guesses. Willie insists that what Wisconsin needs to do is wear helmets covered in aluminum foil that will ward off the effects of our cerebrions. We are perfectly willing to let Wisconsin believe there may be something to this theory; it distracts them. :)

Update added October 1997 - Has the curse reversed?

Maybe it's just a fluke, but there were some signs at the 1997 Deep Bench Tournament that the Hex may be a thing of the past. Carleton came within 5 points (one win by 1st quads) of winning that tournament. Wisconsin was a distant 8th. Carleton's 1st and 2nd quads went 6-2 and 5-3 respectively. Wisconsin's went 3-5 and 4-4. Yet each of Wisconsin's quads beat their Carleton counterparts. Had the traditional pattern held, Carleton would have won that tournament. Instead, Wisconsin played the role of spoiler for us. One theory, which I hope to god is wrong, is that the cerebrions were somehow reversed when Wisconsin's Jer Smith crossed borders this year as a transfer to Minnesota. This will bear watching ...

Final update added February 2000 - It was nice while it lasted

The curse no longer has any life to it, I'm afraid, and, while I'll keep this little essay on our website, this will probably be my last addition to it. After a few sub-par years for Wisconsin competitively, coinciding with Carleton's best years to date, Wisconsin has recently shown signs of a healthy revival -- and together with that, no signs whatsoever of special stumblings versus Carleton. In the space of three weekends early in the year 2000, Wisconsin won its first two student-only tournaments in some while, and went 5-0 versus Carleton A teams in the process. First, in a "junior bird" tournament held on Carleton's own campus, a Carleton team was one tossup away from winning the tournament with an undefeated record over a Wisconsin team with one loss, but Wisconsin's last-tossup head-to-head win over Carleton forced a tiebreaking playoff match, consisting of two games, both of which the Badgers won handily. Then, in what must have been a moment to savor for Wisconsin coach Zimmer, Wisconsin went 17-1 to win its own Elvis tournament for the first time ever, in 13 tries. Carleton finished 4th in that tournament, falling to Wisconsin twice on the way. Whatever demons were once at play here for Wisconsin seem now to have been exorcised.