Reports - Linnaean Games Committee

March 2003

The Committee consists of 11 members, Mark Boetel, Joel Coats, Jeremy Heath (Student rep.), Gary Hein, Russ Jurenka, Barb Nead-Nylander, Blair Siegfried, Joseph Spencer, Rick Weinzierl, Dan Young, and Marlin Rice (Gamesmaster).

An announcement was placed on the NCB web page notifying members about the competition and the deadline for submitting teams. Nine teams entered the 2003 competition: Iowa State University, Kansas State University, North Dakota State University, University of Kentucky, University of Minnesota, University of Missouri, University of Nebraska-Kearney, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and University of Wisconsin. The competition is officially limited to 10 teams so there was one open spot this year. No team requested to enter the competition after the deadline of March 10.

Teams were randomly assigned to competition brackets by former NCB President Ken Holscher. Posting of the team pairings was placed on the announcements bulletin board near the NCB registration desk.

All committee members were solicited for 16 questions in their category of expertise, or a category for which they agreed to provide questions. Members were notified via e-mailings in mid January and a reminder in early March to provide questions by March 14. This time frame then gave the Gamesmaster a little over a week to organize the questions for the competition. All committee members provided questions, although one member provided only 6 questions and two other members “passed the buck” to other faculty at their institution.

Last year’s winners were University of Missouri (Brett Landwer, Francis Lloyd, Peter Chege, and john White) and the runner up was University of Wisconsin (Craig Brabant, Bob Ellingson, Kerry Katovich, and Nadine Kriska). The “Old Timer Team” of Von Kaster, Jay McPherson (ESA President), Jon Tollefson (NCB President), and Rick Weinzierl beat the defending champions – University of Missouri.

Last year, a new twist was added to the games whereby a team could solicit answers to bonus questions from members from members of the audience. Each team was allowed two “lifelines” per contest. The purpose of this addition was to allow the audience to become more involved in the games.

In 2003, I will have completed four years of service to the NCB as Gamesmaster. It has been a wonderful and quite entertaining experience. I greatly appreciate the opportunity that the current and past presidents have given me to work with the students in these games. I now offer my resignation as Gamesmaster to the Executive Committee and wish them the best in finding a qualified replacement.

Marlin Rice, Gamesmaster