Serious fun: Giant trivia contest has a wacky streak

By Irwin Soonachan
Special to the Journal Sentinel

April 16, 1999

Stevens Point -- When Jim Oliva agreed to write the questions for an event that bills itself as the world's largest trivia contest, he got more than he bargained for -- in terms of volume and player enthusiasm.

Each year, about 12,000 contestants on 550 teams compete in the marathon event known as Trivia, which runs today through Sunday.

Eight questions an hour are read over the air on WWSP-FM, the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point radio station, for 54 consecutive hours with only a half-hour break every sixth hour for the standings to be read.

The pace is breakneck. After a question is read, two songs are played. Teams must call their answers in to a phone bank before the second song ends.

And players will do just about anything to find a fast answer.

Oliva remembers the response to this question a few years back: What is the name of the high school that John Jardine coached at before he entered the college football ranks?

"At that time John Jardine was the head coach at UW-Madison," Oliva says. "Well, it was about 6:20 in the morning on Sunday, and like any good investigative trivia players, they called up John Jardine's house. He was steamed."

The contest started in 1969, and for the past 20 years, Oliva, 53, has been responsible for writing most of the questions himself, with occasional help from his friends. He had been a volunteer at the student-run WWSP for two years and was asked to do it, he says, "because I was the old guy."

Over the years, Trivia has become a way of life for devotees of the contest.

John Diser, 32, an ad salesman for a local magazine, ships his two young children off to their grandparents each year and turns his home into headquarters for the Big And Scary Cows, a 20-member trivia team that has placed seventh the past two years in a row.

Their preparation included more than making a few pots of coffee. Months ago, the Big and Scary Cows began gathering information that might be useful.

"We always are looking for good (reference) books, so we have a huge library full of books," Diser says. "We try to watch current TV shows, TV commercials and movies to take notes on them. We have people who do clippings from newspapers and magazines, all sorts of things that might be trivial."

Diser even buys unusual food products in case something about their containers or contents might turn up as a trivia question.

Sometimes, though, even diligent teams like Diser's are caught off guard by Oliva's questions, such as this one from a few years ago: "Raffo beer is made in Rome, Italy, and what an Italian delight. What is the name of the exclusive importer and distributor of Raffo beer in the United States?"

"About 15 minutes later I got a call from AT&T," says Oliva, owner of a local computer store. "I was not to ever ask a question like that again. All overseas lines were blocked coming out of Wisconsin. There was a total tie-up of long-distance carriage across the ocean. That's the kind of stuff that happens. They'll stop at nothing to get the answers."

The time and money spent by Trivia teams is all the more remarkable given the prizes they are competing for. The top 10 teams each receive a trophy and a handshake from Oliva. The low overhead makes Trivia a valuable fund-raiser for WWSP, which charges a $30 entry fee per team.

"Trivia pretty much runs the station for us,' says WWSP station manager Carrie Kostetchka.

Local businesses may benefit even more. Forty percent of Trivia players come from out of town, bringing a rare influx of people into this city of 20,000.

"Trivia means quite a bit for business," says Matthew Fox, assistant manager of Copps, one of the largest grocery stores in the Stevens Point area. "The amount of snacks and chips that we sell that week passes even Christmas and New Year's Eve."

What keeps players coming back? It may be the contest's blend of quirky humor combined with the serious pursuit of trivia. Each year a parade resembling Philadelphia's Mummers Parade kicks off the event; it starts at 4 p.m. today.

The 45-minute romp through the streets of Stevens Point is about as wild as this normally conservative town gets. Participating teams create floats; the prize for best float is 10 frozen pizzas.

Trivia has been dominated in recent years by Network, a team which has won 13 times since 1980. When they first played together in 1978, most of the Network members were high school students in Stevens Point. Now scattered across the country, Network members journey from both coasts for the contest.

Network's Jim Newman, a television scriptwriter flying in this week from his home in Sherman Oaks, Calif., says Trivia's irreverence is the key to its success.

"It's just fun sitting around with old friends," he says. "It's like a little kids' sleep-over party all weekend long. You get to relive that. It's not like 'Jeopardy' where it's all very stoic and snooty. We have the parade and the wacky floats and costumes."

Diser agrees. Despite the time and effort he puts into the contest, he says, "we try not to take it too seriously. . . . It's all about having fun."

For more information, call WWSP at (715) 346-3755. All teams must register in person by 6 tonight at the WWSP studios, Room 101 of the UW-Stevens Point Communication Arts Center on Reserve St.

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