The 1968 Pitt "GE College Bowl" team members, from left: Mike Brourman of McKees Rocks; George Gray of Brookline; Thomas Graves of Chevy Chase, Md.; and Kathy Trosan of Johnstown. Brourman thinks the team was one question short of becoming five-time champions.

By Mark Roth
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

As far as Mike Brourman is concerned, the University of Pittsburgh's 1968 "GE College Bowl" team was one question short of becoming five-time champions.

On Jan. 28, in its third match, Mr. Brourman and his Pitt teammates lost in the last second to Furman University, 295-285, on a toss-up question about the colony of Jamestown. At the time, host Robert Earle called it "the most exciting game in the history of the College Bowl."

	GE College Bowl 1966 Broadcast Get a feeling for the furious pace and wide-ranging academic boundaries of College Bowl action by watching and listening to the clash between Agnes Scott College and Princeton University. Click on each of the three segments of their 1966 competition below.

Up until then, Pitt had established a reputation as a comeback team par excellence.

The squad -- Mr. Brourman of McKees Rocks; captain George Gray of Brookline; Kathy Trosan of Johnstown; and Thomas Graves of Chevy Chase, Md. -- was chosen in late 1967 after the school invited interested students to try out by playing matches on two home versions of the TV game.

Mr. Gray, now a computer specialist for the state of Georgia, said he remembered being worried when his teammates were chosen because school officials didn't select people with different specialties, as many College Bowl squads had done.

"That turned out to be a false concern because in the end we knew enough about this, that and the other to do OK."

In its first match against the University of Missouri, Pitt was trailing midway through the second half by 50 points when Mr. Brourman answered a question about the Wright Brothers, and the team was off to the races, eventually winning 235-185.

The next week, Pitt got off to an even slower start against the University of Kansas, trailing 85-0 at the start. It pulled ahead when Miss Trosan answered toss-up questions on the names of the first three postwar West German chancellors, according to an account in the student newspaper. It won 260-140.

Going into the Furman University match the following week, Mr. Brourman said Pitt was extremely confident because it "slaughtered" the South Carolina team during the three practice games that were routinely played before the live broadcast.

"They did so badly that one of the Furman guys pulled me aside and said, 'If you get that far ahead when we're on the air, could you hold back and let us answer a question?' " Mr. Brourman said.

In the live broadcast, though, the mix of questions suited Furman, and it jumped out ahead of Pitt, which then had to stage a comeback to edge ahead before the fateful last question.

Mr. Brourman said one drawback on the last match was that Mr. Gray was sick and nauseated.

But Mr. Gray recalled that he actually got sick the day before, flying up to New York on the old Allegheny Airlines. "Even though it was just a Pittsburgh to New York flight, this was the old days, so they served lunch," he said. "Part of the lunch was shrimp cocktail, which I'd never had, and I thought 'OK, I'll eat this.' That is how I learned I was allergic to shrimp."

After watching the subsequent games on TV, Mr. Brourman is sure Pitt would have won two more if it had made it past Furman.

Mr. Gray doubts it. Furman eventually lost to the University of Southern California, which went on to become a five-time champion.

Mr. Brourman, who today is a high-profile divorce attorney in Los Angeles, credits Pitt's liberal arts emphasis at the time for how well he did on College Bowl.

As a political science major, he had to take five humanities, five social sciences and five natural sciences courses to fulfill graduation requirements.

"I never would have taken five natural sciences classes if I didn't have to," he said.