Broadview Heights Mind Challenge team falls in semifinals

by Dan Holland

Team Broadview Heights, which has won Mind Challenge for the New Majority – a trivia competition for seniors – three times in past years, ended up being edged out in the “Fact Finding Six” semifinal round this year held at Donna Smallwood Activities Center in Parma on May 28. They finished second to the team from Canal Fulton, which went on to compete in the finals the following day.

This year’s competition boasted a record 72 communities consisting of 115 teams and nearly 800 participants. Cities are grouped into eight regions with a host city for each. The competition is modeled after the NCAA basketball tournament bracket, with teams facing elimination or advancement each week. Cities can enter as many teams as they like, which can consist of up to six players in a round.

Co-founders Art Greenberg and Phil Levine organized the first competition in 2019, which pairs seniors against teams from other cities around Northeast Ohio to compete for a total of $5,500 in cash prizes for their respective cities, with winnings often benefitting a team’s local senior center. 

This year’s team, led by captain Tom Bendycki, also featured Ken Winter, Marlene Winter, Rick Biasella, Connie Brittain, Carol Siebert and John Bertschler. The team won $1,000 for finishing third overall, earning the highest score among teams not advancing to the finals.

Bendycki first joined the group in 2020 after his mother told him about the new competition.

“The first year I was involved, it was interrupted by COVID, and they changed it to a remote competition, and so they cut down on the number of questions,” said Bendycki. “We finished second that year, then we won the competition three years in a row following that. Last year, we lost in the first round by one point.”

Broadview Heights was one of eight host cities this year for the competitions in conjunction with the city’s Human Services Department.

Competitions feature six rounds of three questions each, with one being a bonus question. Teams can wager one, three or six points during the first three rounds. Wager amounts then change to two, five or seven points in the final three rounds. Incorrectly answered bonus questions lead to a loss of wagered points, or a team can choose to pass. Teams have 90 seconds to come up with an answer during the individual rounds, with each question falling under a different topic heading.

“The bad thing is when you think you know the answer, but you don’t want to take a chance, as with the bonus questions, where you get penalized if you answer incorrectly,” said Bendycki. 

Answers to questions can sometimes be deduced by applying logic, he added.

“One question they asked, for instance, was which music artist put out a certain album on Atlantic Records in 1960 that included the words ‘The Genius’ in the title,” Bendycki explained. “We deduced it was probably an African-American artist, and so we guessed Ray Charles, which was correct.”

The final round features an exercise in which players are tasked with properly identifying eight photos on a sheet of paper, with a total of 40 points being available.

“A big part of it is at the end in the pictures round,” said Bendycki. “We usually do very well in that round, which consists of photos of people, places and things. Last year, they wanted us to identify ten tools, which threw us for a loop. But this year, they went back to the usual photos.”Bendycki noted that the group has donated its winning over the years to a variety of local charities. “One year, we donated it to with help the HEAP Assistance program, and we’ve also benefited food programs over the years,” he said. “I come back every year because I really enjoy the competition; it’s a lot of fun.” 

Photo caption: Teams from Broadview Heights, Canal Fulton and Twinsburg compete in the “Elevated Six” round of competition. Photo by Dan Holland.