Sean Smiley is the outgoing captain of the College and William & Mary's Quiz Bowl Team. He is a recent graduate of the William & Mary Law School.
Wallace: What made you interested in QuizBowl?
Smiley: I’ve always had an interest in a wide variety of subjects, and Quizbowl allowed for a competitive outlet for those interests.
Wallace: How would you describe QuizBowl to somebody who has not heard of it?
Smiley: It’s an academic competition, not trivia. The purpose of the competition is to reward people for having deep and wide knowledge bases, not for knowing random facts about random things.
Wallace: How did you rise to the captaincy of the William and Mary QuizBowl team?
Smiley: By the time I arrived at W&M, the club had more or less ceased existing. The club met but they didn’t really compete, and the people who had previously planned meetings had all left school or stopped playing. I helped run VCU’s team when I was in undergrad, so I was able to use my experience in leading a club to start up the team at W&M.
Wallace: How does the team prepare for competition?
Smiley: Usually we scrimmage on old tournaments. This allows us to test what we already know and highlight what we need to know better. When we have enough time, we’ll look up topics that we don’t know a lot about and try to strengthen our knowledge base.
Wallace: What areas of knowledge, if any, do you specialize in?
Smiley: Literature, history, and art are my strongest categories, but I’ve been around long enough that I’ve developed a passable amount of knowledge in most areas.
Wallace: What do you feel is the value of being on a QuizBowl team?
Smiley: I think it incentivizes people to learn a lot of things that they otherwise wouldn’t be learning about. Since Quizbowl covers so many subjects, it forces people out of any sort of academic bubble that they may have been living in. Plus, I think the competition really helps to develop critical thinking skills.
Wallace: What advice would you give to new QuizBowl competitors?
Smiley: Unless you played very competitively at the high school level, you’re going to suck when you start out. The important thing is that you have the will and ability to learn more. The first few months of playing are the hardest by far.
Wallace: What are your goals for the future of the team?
Smiley: Nothing too specific other than to continue to grow and improve as a team. Since there is a lot of turnover in players due to people graduation, it becomes difficult to have more concrete goals than that.
Wallace: Do you have any thoughts on the future of QuizBowl as a whole?
Smiley: The future is looking great. A lot more schools from all across the country are becoming active, and with the increased number of teams, the quality of play has also improved. As long as this continues, the future is as bright as can be.
