Dreaming of Lyle’s: Pubmaster says to bring the quiz home

Quick — what was the highest-grossing movie at the box office this weekend? 

If you spend any time in the HSSC multipurpose room at 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday nights, where the first question of the evening is always the same, chances are you know the answer. 

Despite its name, the hallowed Grinnell tradition of Pub Quiz is no longer held in Lyle’s Pub, the on-campus watering hole that was run entirely by students from 2008 until the pandemic shutdown. Though the College returned in person, Lyle’s never did, and an integral part of Pub Quiz’s vibe was lost. The first thing Grinnell alums, faculty and staff ask when they hear I’m a part of Pub Quiz is — do they still do that in Lyle’s.

By definition, Pub Quiz should be held in a bar, but even away from its rightful home in Lyle’s, the congeniality and spirit of Pub Quiz remains strong, bolstered by the students who attend each week.

A typical Pub Quiz starts a few minutes after 8:30 p.m. to account for Grinnell time. The opening category is always current events and is usually hosted by yours truly. Two headshots of Willem Dafoe are displayed on the opening PowerPoint slide across the massive screen in the HSSC multipurpose room. Why are they there? It doesn’t matter. 

After current events comes the first random category of the night. This is where a Pubmaster’s personality really shines. Prompting quizgoers to finish lyrics to “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” guess Star Wars episodes from LEGO Star Wars screenshots or decode book titles from a series of pictures, we’re never short on imagination. 

The third round of the night is our guest round, the chance for clubs, SEPCs and other organizations on campus to self-advertise in the venue of champions. With guests like the Sexual Health Information Center (SHIC) and Swing Society, Pub Quiz creates a stage for and connections between our fellow students.

 Another cornerstone of Quiz culture is the pity pick — the team with the lowest score at the end of each week gets to pick a category for the next week. Lower performing teams get a boost from choosing a category that plays to their strengths, ensuring no one spends too long at the bottom of the leaderboard.

The broadness of our categories and our student involvement are no accident. We seek to appeal to as many people as possible and encourage teams to cultivate variety in their knowledge. When my fellow Pubmasters Anne, George and I competed — under team names like Neutral Milk AirBnB, Death Cab for Ugly Bitch, Florence and the Means of Production — our success came from our breadth of knowledge.

Now, I have a secret: I’m absolutely terrible at the song round. My musical palette lands somewhere between that of a sixty-year-old Midwestern dad and a theater kid. But I can afford to be terrible because my team has my back, and on categories that play to my strengths, I have theirs.

But even someone unfamiliar with pop music, someone who knows nothing about English literature, baseball statistics, video games or the Met Gala, should be able to get a question or two right every round. And if each person can get a question right, a team of six makes a strong showing.

Much like the spirit at the center of Lyle’s and other student initiatives at Grinnell, self-governance is at the core of Pub Quiz. Our constitution ensures that Pubmasters can only serve two semesters before the torch must be passed to a new kingdom. No other club on campus has such a term limit to their leadership. In addition to keeping Pubmasters from burning out — and thus the club and probably the entire college from going down in flames — the term limit favors high student engagement.

New Pubmasters don’t come from just anywhere — they come from teams dedicated to coming week after week, teams with enough knowledge, wit, charisma and spreadsheet skills to rally their fellow students. Before becoming Pubmasters, we had a ten-week winning streak under our belts, plus a year and a half of stalwart attendance. Electing new Pubmasters is as crucial to maintaining strong leadership as term limits — aspiring Pubmasters must audition themselves in front of their peers to prove they have the necessary chops. 

Recovering from the pandemic was hard on everything, and Pub Quiz is no exception. Only third and fourth years will remember Isaac, Tara and Evan’s reign of glory, which lasted for an extra semester to give time for campus life to revive. But despite their best efforts, Lyle’s Pub remains shuttered from student view, and no one’s quite sure why. 

The purpose of a club like Pub Quiz is to give students a place to decompress, hang out with friends and show off their otherwise useless troves of trivial knowledge. It’s not about drinking culture. It’s about trusting students and maintaining the institutional memories that matter to us.

For all its affordances as the current home of Pub Quiz, the HSSC multipurpose room lacks character and specificity. We come, arrange the chairs, turn on the projector, ask our questions and leave, cleaning up any trash and turning off the lights on our way out. We have no lasting impact on the space. The Pub Quiz vibe is entirely cultivated by students, without the sense of support that comes from having such a dedicated location like Lyle’s. What better way to demonstrate a commitment to self-gov than to give students ownership over their beloved pub — and return Pub Quiz to its rightful home.