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Original article November 30, 2017 The Fellowship of Northeast Ohio has been quietly dominating bar trivia for the past 10 years By: Patrick Cooley, cleveland.com, pcooley@cleveland.com By Patrick Cooley, cleveland.com pcooley@cleveland.com KENT, Ohio - A group of around 20 people waited anxiously on the second floor of the Buffalo Wild Wings on Main Street Tuesday evening, waiting to answer trivia questions displayed across a trio of TV screens lining the room. "Battle stations!" defacto group leader Kevin Kern shouted when the screens announced the beginning of the first round. His team members - who calls themselves The Fellowship - indicated their readiness by replying, "Whoop, whoop!" And their competition with hundreds of teams across North America began. In all likelihood you've never heard of the Fellowship, but the small Northeast Ohio group has been quietly dominating bar trivia for the past decade. Last year, they won an annual Brain Buster trivia tournament and had the highest score of 200 North American teams in a Buzztime trivia tournament. Anyone who has visited a BW3 or Damon's Sport Bar has likely noticed that some of the restaurants' TV screens are devoted to trivia contests on topics as diverse as geography, pop culture, language and history. Buzztime Trivia broadcasts those questions to nearly 4,000 bars and restaurants throughout the United States, Canada and the Caribbean. Hundreds of teams throughout North America compete with one another during an organized competition on Tuesday nights to prove their trivia proficiency. The Fellowship is one of the best, having won numerous tournaments. They proudly display trophies to prove it. "Since 2007, we've won 115 games," Kern said. "Which is by far the most of any team this century." They win around 20 percent of the Tuesday games, he said. "We've been the team with the most wins every single year for the last 9 years," Kern said. They attribute their success in part to their diversity. While a significant portion of Fellowship members are on the faculty at the University of Akron, the group also boasts members from a variety of professions, including medicine, computer science, law and even the clergy. With such a variety of topics, it helps that their members come from a smattering of professions and offer expertise in a wide range of subjects. The questions "'Believe it or Not' was the theme song for this television series:" was one of the earlier questions Tuesday. Minutes later the screen throws this at the group: "Horsetail is a ___ that is considered a living fossil." Later questions asked players to identify obscure languages and label elements in certain minerals. They were even asked what major city Mesquite, Texas, is a suburb of (it's Dallas). "It could be anything from anthropology to zoology," Kern said. In most rounds, Buzztime rewards participants for answering questions quickly without using clues. So when a question appears, any Fellowship member who knows the answer shouts it out immediately, giving the group time to respond before the point value drops. Kern carries a notebook and writes down the names of anyone who answers the most puzzling questions. Some groups across the country use computers, tablets and smartphones to solve the most obscure questions -- although in fairness, the game rewards those who know the answers off the top of their head by awarding the most points to contestants who answer immediately. The Fellowship derisively refers to such groups as "Borg" teams, a reference to a villainous race from the "Star Trek" TV shows and movies who upgrade their bodies with cybernetic implants. Those groups are often outed on message boards by independent observers. Members of the Fellowship said that other groups have accused them of using computers and mobile devices because they win so often. The accusations ended after an observer came to watch them play, they said. Said observer even praised them on a message board post, concluding "to sum it up, they are on the level and they are awfully freakin' good," an affirmation the Fellowship was so proud of they had it engraved on one of their trophies. The group Fellowship members described their group as a random assortment of professions and personalities. The Fellowship (yes, that is a reference to J.R.R. Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" novels and the movies they inspired) started in 2004, competing in what was then called the National Trivia Network at a Damon's Sports Bar and Grill in Stow which has since shuttered. It has since changed its name to NTN Buzztime. Kern said he was one of the original five or six players. The group moved to Damon's in Twinsburg once the Stow location closed, only to move to Stringz and Wingz in Streetsboro when the Twinsburg location shut its doors. Stringz and Wingz is now defunct and the group has found a new home in Kent. "Every time we moved we acquired a few more members," Kern said. Kern, who teaches history at the University of Akron, invited some of his fellow professors to participate, and as more people joined their ranks they invited their own friends and colleagues and the Fellowship gradually grew to its current size, attracting anywhere from 15 to 25 people on any given Tuesday. "We've got former students, children of members of the team who played with us, school teachers, car mechanics, human resource managers, pastors. We take anybody," Kern said. "We're lucky to have a couple of botanists on the team, and sometimes they ask for the scientific name of a particular flower or particular tree," he said. "So we're fortunate to have people like that on the team." Each member contributes in their own way. Many of the questions involve general knowledge, but some are absurdly specific and require the particular expertise of an individual Fellowship member. "The big thrill for everyone here" is procuring an answer to a question the befuddles the rest of the group, said Fellowship member Jon Sell. "Some of these guys know most of the answers," Sell said. "But if I know one answer in an evening that no one else knows, I go home feeling just great." How they joined Michael Levin said Kern introduced him to the Fellowship. Both work in the University of Akron's History Department. "There are a number of faculty members from the history department here," he said. Jon Sell was a computer programmer for the Cleveland Clinic when the Fellowship recruited him. The detailed knowledge of human anatomy and medical procedures he acquired in that job proved valuable. "They didn't have a doctor at the time, and I was like a poor man's doctor," he said. Bob Barrett's journey to the Fellowship is indicative of the winding path that some members take to get to the group. He also works on the faculty at the University of Akron as a senior lecturer in the Department of Geosciences. He happened to overhear Kern talking about a particularly vexing trivia question from a Tuesday night competition. Barrett said he was bored during an academic event one evening and wondered around looking for someone with something interesting to say. He eventually stumbled upon Kern, who was lamenting the fact that the Fellowship could have won a recent Tuesday night game if one of them would have known the family name for the banana. "I leaned over and said, 'you mean Musaceae?'" Barrett said. Barrett's answer astonished Kern, who told his fellow professor, 'You've got to join us.' " "I said, 'Join what?' And the rest is history," Barrett said. The Fellowship wins a lot, and members said that's part of the draw. But the camaraderie also keeps people coming back. "I think most of us would play even if we weren't actually winning all the time" Levin said. Anyone is welcome to join them for their Tuesday night games. They begin to gather on the second floor of the Kent Buffalo Wild Wings at 7:30 p.m. and the contest begins at 8 p.m. |