Robert Meredith

Robert L. Meredith (born November 8, 1945, died August 12, 2005 in Atlanta, Georgia [cite news|url=https://www.legacy.com/Obituaries.asp?Page=ObitFinderOrder&PersonID=14811098|title=Obituaries: Meredith, Robert|work=Atlanta Journal-Constitution|date=2005-08-14|accessdate=2007-08-12] ) was a professor and innovator in the domain of quizbowl. While an assistant professor of English at the Georgia Institute of Technology, he became coach of their College Bowl team in 1980. Meredith instituted "The System", a program that Georgia Tech, and later other successful quizbowl programs, followed to develop players. A key element of the System was requiring team members to produce questions on a regular basis for practice. Meredith retired from coaching in 1989.cite web|url=http://www.cyberbuzz.gatech.edu/quizbowl/alumni.html|title=Alumni: Coaches|work=Georgia Tech Quizbowl|publisher=Georgia Institute of Technology|accessdate=2007-08-12]

Meredith innovated the now standard match format of untimed games of twenty ten point toss-up questions with thirty point bonuses, with all questions on academic material, thus making him a forefather of the Academic Competition Federation. It is for primarily this reason the ACF national championship trophy is named the Meredith Cup in his honor. "Doc" Meredith coached Tech to three non-College Bowl, pre-ACF, national championships in the 1980s. Meredith's greatest campaign was his last in 1988-89, when Georgia Tech's 1st and 2nd teams placed first and second, respectively, at the All-American Academic Championship at the University of Tennessee.

Under Meredith's tutelage a number dominant players competed for Georgia Tech, including Chris Moody, Albert Whited, Norman Kreutter, Jim Dendy, Scott Gillispie, Steve Taylor, Robert Forsythe, and David Levinson. While a student, Meredith was chosen to represent the University of Kansas (Lawrence) in the College Bowl Radio Competition in 1967. Due to scheduling changes, the Kansas squad was bumped from the competition that year and Meredith never got the opportunity to compete at the collegiate level.

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