College Bowl Flush

I was more than a contender.
I was a champion.  I was THE National Champion.
I was on TV.
I was in the papers.
I was on CBS National Radio with Art Fleming.
Yeah, they even did one of those TV News magazine stories with me.

Mark Suneson.  Captain, California State University at Fresno, 1980 College Bowl National Champions.  My three teammate and I brought glory, fame and respect to Fresno State that summer of '80.
But where are they now? huh?

We won our Regionals at UCLA.  We punched our ticket to St. Louis, MO to face 14 other regional schools in College Bowl, the erstwhile TV quiz show that pitted university teams against one another, scoring by "buzzing in" on a lock out system and being the first to correctly answer questions spanning undergraduate subjects found in a liberal arts curriculum, current and historical events and some cultural oddities.  We dressed in western hats - which befuddled those teams from Texas and Oklahoma.  We Californians ate pancakes and bacon for breakfast, astonishing many a competitor who assumed we left coast types subsisted on alfalfa sprouts and yak yogurt.  We brought along a few boxes of Fresno State's own grown and packaged raisins from the campus vineyard and freely tossed the small boxes into the crowd of vanquished competitors before we sat to play our next match.  The crowd loved us and the treats.  Art Fleming (Original host of TV's Jeopardy!), our moderator, had to on several occasions quiet the audience who were gleefully chanting; "Raisins! Raisins! Raisins!" as we took the stage. 

We won it all.  We beat the hosting institution, Washington University (proclaiming the highest amount of per capita National Merit Scholars in the country).

I have not returned to walk the Fresno State campus since I left for grad school in Texas in 1981.  But, I was in Fresno early this June, and I prevailed upon my hosting sister to take me back to Fresno State.  It was 107 degrees and though I remember it being hot in summers past, I do not ever recall feeling the searing intensity of the hot air I felt on this afternoon.  It was blistering.  Of course I bought a souvenir T-shirt.

I found the Geology Department relocated to a new building that was not there when I matriculated.  I talked with a professor and gave my business card to the department's executive assistant - just in case any Bakersfield oil companies were looking for Fresno State grads to work in the oilfields down there.  I just might relocate.

Smiling with the Smilodon
Fresno State Geology Department

My two sisters and I winced as we left the a/c and returned to the air as crisp as baked parchment and ducked into the Student Union building.  I went upstairs where the Director of Student Activities officed.  I nonchalantly asked "Where is the 1980 College Bowl National Championship trophy now displayed?"  
The coed working there told me, "I don't know, but I'll bet they probably threw it away if it was that old."  
I let it slip that I had brought that trophy and all of the prestige it represents back to Fresno State myself.  She then suggested that "maybe it was in the old field house with some other trophies - but, I don't really know.  Maybe you should talk to the activities director down the hall."

I did find the director even at that late hour in the afternoon.  She spent some time with me and my sisters and said that College Bowl as an event has long been supplanted.  Though she still had the buzzer lock-out system in a closet and a few packets of questions somewhere as well.  I inquired about Bob Lundahl, the Act Dir in my time.  She though she had heard that he died a few years back.  No surprise, the little man smoked more than anybody I ever knew, and he was always very nervous.  He could not bear to watch to our final matches.  He was fun, but as I feared, not long for this world with his constitution and bad habits. 

That giant sucking sound your hear is the 'glorious past' being flushed away down the ol' College Bowl.
Glory days.  As the Boss say, they'll pass you by in a wink of a young man's eye.  Glory days.
Now all of that is in the dust bin.  No surprise really.  Who would be expected to care about that?  Do not rest on past laurels, those glory days will fade.  Just as I expected I'd find on my return.  No tears shed.  The journey continues...

Alexander the Great wept for lack of new empires to conquer (that'd be a great College Bowl question!).  Not me, I still have lots to conquer.  I'll get right on that...

Meanwhile, back at Valhalla:

Art Fleming:  Here's your next question.  "In what year did Fresno State win the College Bowl National Championship?"
[buzz]

Earthman, San Francisco State, what is your answer.

Earthman:  "Trick question!  Fresno State could never win.  Nothing good could ever come from Fresno.

Art Flemming: I am sorry, that is so incorrect - and minus 5 points for being so snide.  
No takers on the otherside?  The correct answer is 1980.

Now for your next question; "What three academic majors did the captain of the 1980 National Champion College Bowl team claim to have been studying?"
[buzz]

Suneson, Fresno State, what is your answer?

Suneson:  That's easy; Nuclear Philanthropy, Holistic Calculus and Subaqueous Cestoweaviumology.

Art Flemming:  "That is correct for 30 points!" 

In Valhalla, I still am the Champion.

The Spoils of the Victorious
Long ago relegated to the Dust Bin