ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE
G.E. College Bowl
The team brought national recognition and pride to both the Colleges and the area.
Forty years ago, Hobart and William Smith became undefeated champions in the Division One of academic competition, the nationally-televised G.E. College Bowl. It was a defining moment not only for the participants, but also for the Colleges and Geneva.
The championship game hadn’t started out well that last Sunday in January 1961. Hobart and William Smith’s team of Jerry Levy ’63, Marcia Berges Hodges ’61, James Zurer ’63, and Joseph Rishel ’62 were taking on Baylor University. In the afternoon practice game, they had lost to Baylor. During the broadcast, when host Allen Ludden asked the first question, Baylor quickly buzzed in, putting the Texas team on the scoreboard with 25 points. After a commercial, the match resumed:
| Ludden: “For 30 points, take the number of German Reichs and add the number of French Republics. What is the answer?” HWS—Levy: “Eight!” Ludden: “That is correct.” |
The HWS team was now on the board.
Answering questions was nothing new for this team. Hodges remembers the process, “The teachers made up ever so many questions. I remember a day of written responses to questions. Some clever persons built a buzzer-board like on the show, so we could play team against team. Faculty members watched the show, categorizing questions: literature, history, miscellaneous, music . . . so they knew what was needed for a balanced team.”
| Ludden: “For a 20-point bonus, what modern art movement sounds like baby talk?” HWS—Rishel: “Dada!” |
Sports, art, logic, history, music, physics, and math were all fair game. To get to the Baylor game, HWS had already beaten Beloit, Wesleyan, Carnegie Tech, and Louisiana State University. The third game with Carnegie Tech of Pittsburgh was a squeaker with HWS winning 140 to 135. In the last five seconds, Zurer scored the win and then joyfully thanked his biology professor. He correctly identified the location of the pia mater and dura mater as belonging in: “The brain and spinal cord! Thank you Miss Nellis!”
Now the HWS team was in the fifth and final game.
| Ludden: “According to Shakespeare, Romeo was from Verona. According to Euripides from what town did Medea hail?” HWS—Berges: “Corinth.” |
Although Baylor was a tough opponent, they didn’t stand a chance when the HWS team settled down. The final score: HWS 245 - Baylor 140. The Colleges were one of three teams out of 79, along with Colgate and Rutgers, to retire undefeated. They earned the coveted College Bowl trophy (now residing in the Rare Book Room of the library) and $9,000 in scholarship funds from General Electric, a significant sum in 1961.
Geneva was jubilant. The town had a parade and declared February 2 to be Hobart and William Smith Day. Jerry Levy remembers, “The people of Geneva were so nice. They stopped us on the street and talked with us. We were invited to community lunches.”
The
victory’s impact was felt well beyond the town. HWS President Louis
Hirshson received an anonymous package in the mail containing nearly
$1,200 in tens and twenties simply marked for the scholarship fund.
Many prospective students began to look seriously at HWS. Dr. Reynold
Levy ’66, now President of the International Rescue Committee, chose
Hobart because “The notion that Hobart and William Smith would honor
intellectuals and take pride in a battle of the ‘eggheads’ intrigued
me. Any school that excelled in lacrosse and in the College Bowl was
worth a good look.”
And what of the team? Their success was a combination of many things: luck, the HWS coordinate courses, the many practice sessions, faculty coaching, and the basic fact that they were simply the brightest and the best. —John Norvell ’66
Today, Marcia Berges Hodges is a storyteller in Oregon. Jerry Levy is a lawyer specializing in health law in New York. Jim Zurer recently retired from the Department of Labor in Washington, D.C., and now plans itineraries for independent travelers to Italy. Joe Rishel is a curator of European art and sculpture at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.