From the Stevens Point Journal April 14, 2004:

Trivia teams count on people

By SUSAN KAMPMEIER
Journal staff


Web-page favorites, musty, dog-eared books, and spiral-bound notebooks are the tools of the trade for the nearly 500 trivia teams who'll spend this weekend tracking down obscure bits of information in the name of knowledge.

The members of BASP 42: A New Hope plan to surf the Web for many answers during Trivia 35. Their favorite sites include Google and LetsSingit.com.

"Otherwise, it comes from our own heads," said team member Mike Seaman, a sophomore at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. Team members specialize in different areas such as cartoons, comic books and movies.

The Internet is a staple for Jane Anderson's team, which plays from Nekoosa. "For a long time, we were 10 drunk people with a table full of books," Anderson said. "If Charter goes down, I'm going to sue."

While the Web has changed how the game is played, the Internet can't replace books and other reference materials, Anderson said. Leonard Maltin's movie guide and a world almanac are among her favorite volumes. Teammates who travel from other towns to play with Anderson's team in Nekoosa often raid their local libraries before making the trip for Trivia, Anderson added.

"I like bringing the kids up through it. They learn how to do research. They learn how to use reference materials," she said.

While Trivia quizmaster Jim "Oz" Oliva spends his time writing the questions for the contest, not answering them, he knows exactly what books he would use if he ever switched sides.

"I would buy every book by Robert Parrish and Vincent Terrace," Oliva said. Parrish specializes in movie information, while Terrace's books get into TV and radio, Oliva said.

Workers at Charles M. White Public Library always can tell when Trivia is around the corner.

"We do notice people getting ready and preparing by checking things out, books on old movies and sports and things like that," said Jack Faulkner-Becker, a reference librarian.

The most popular trivia-related buys at Mike Plonsker Books, 1209 Second Ave., are books that focus on film, music and TV, or those that contain lists, like British film stars or every spaghetti western ever made, owner Mike Plonsker said. "There are some teams that come in regularly because I've got revolving stock all the time," Plonsker said.

When team members of Finding Neebins prepare for Trivia, it includes networking several computers for the weekend's contest, said team member Tom Mathias of Marshfield. But players know they can't count on the Web for all of the answers, he said. He recalled the year a Mary Tyler Moore trivia book he bought for $4.35 paid off with a 335-point answer.

"Sometimes, the most valuable question comes out of the most obscure book," Mathias said.

Finding Neebins' members raid about 10 different libraries to check out books for Trivia. The team has another edge: Mathias' wife, Kim, owns Thimbleberry Books, a used bookstore in Marshfield, which he admits he raids for helpful volumes.

There are the well-worn standards Finding Neebins' members turn to each year, too. Mathias listed old almanacs among his favorite tools for tackling recondite questions, like finding out who won a horse race in 1922.

"If you don't have an old almanac, you won't get it," Mathias said.
Books are an investment all trivia teams make, said Jason Bilbrey of The Collective, who spent $500 on books this year.

"I went to a lot of used-book sales. Some of those books get kind of expensive," Bilbrey said.
While books and the Internet can be handy, notes are necessities. Ben Scheer of The Collective keeps spiral-bound notebooks all year long. "But I'm very disorganized," he admitted.

But knowledge that can't be organized, indexed or cross-referenced can often be the most important reference of all, said Betsy Barden, Plover, of Nostalgic Idiots Mentally Reliving Our Delusions of Success. She recalled the year her then-6-year-old son - up well past bedtime - called in a 150-point answer from his grandma's house to the team's home base.

"People, they're our biggest resource," Barden said. "It's that person that caught that 10 seconds of a movie while they were channel surfing."