I first met Matt at the ABT Earlybird Tournament at U of I. He was the moderator in one of the pool rooms that our team was assigned. I asked him if he knew Andrew "A-Train" Ullsperger who was our HS team's toss-up record holder at the time. Between rounds Matt chatted with my team and talked about his interests in grad school at U of I. His calm demeanor, great sense of humor, and the encouragement that he offered to our team made this particular year our best opener for team spirit. Our team got 8th place that year with mostly sophomores playing.

Last season, our senior captian, "The Vikman" used a question set from the 2004 ABT Earlybird to quiz the Board of Education about ancient history during the recognition part of the meeting. We placed 3rd at ATB Earlybird in 2005.

Bloomington HS Scholastic Bowl Team wishes to thank Matt's family for the memorial grant which allowed our buzzers systems to be repaired for the 2005-2006 season.
--Ms. Voorhees
<mailto:voorheesd@district87.org>

I was forwarded this site by a friend of mine and was shocked to learn that Matt died nearly 2 years ago. I knew Matt from living on Harwood, one of the two Iowa State honors houses at the time, our freshman and sophomore years. He was a great guy and always had a good attitude.

Outside of his obvious love for quiz bowls, a couple of memories come to mind. One was from the end of our first semester after a Calculus II final. A group of us had gathered to compare answers. As we were coming to a consensus on what we thought the correct answers were, each of us was counting up how many wrong answers we had. Matt had more wrong than he liked and was breaking out his sarcasm and wondering aloud why he had chosen to take Honors Calculus II when it was not required by any of his majors. Many of the problems that he missed were ones that couldn't be solved by "the simplest method." Matt had a great sense of humor about the whole thing, and I remember having a good laugh with him about it.

Matt was affectionately known as "Large" Matthew by a few of his fellow Harwoodians because many of us couldn't pronounce his last name correctly, and he was the biggest of the 3 or so Matt's on the floor. He was also one of the few people who our rival floor actually feared in our annual tackle football game. The description of him as a voracious reader is accurate. He always had his nose in a book. I can still picture him lying on his back reading a book held high in the air. It is no wonder he was so good at trivia.

This site is a fitting tribute to Matt, and I hope his name lives on through the memorial grants you provide.

--Sean

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