Trivia Champions

NEW YORK--The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill defeated Rice University for first place in the College Bowl National Championship last month.

College Bowl--nationally organized as the "varsity sport of the mind" by the Association of College Unions-International--was a popular Sunday afternoon TV trivia quiz show years ago, pitting teams of three students against each other for the academic honor of their school.

This year, an estimated 20,000 teams competed for the $20,000 in scholarship grants that TIME magazine awarded the schools of the winning teams. The University of North Carolina won $2,500 for its students' triumph.

Harvard's team--which had made it into the nationals for five consecutive years--lost at the divisional playoffs of the national championships in March this year, but won a $750 scholarship grant for Harvard for its top-24 finish. Harvard team member Steven Rapkin '83 said yesterday.

In a surprising incident, the night before a College Bowl competition in December. Rapkin said, he had a whim to carefully examine the back of a $1 bill. Strangely, one of the first questions the next day was: "What is on the back of a dollar bill?" Rapkin's team answered the question and went on to win the match.