With the exception of St. Joe’s, all of the major colleges in Philadelphia and the Main Line, including Villanova, Haverford, Bryn Mawr College, Swarthmore, LaSalle, Temple, Drexel and Penn – sent teams to compete on the popular network TV quiz show, the G.E. College Bowl.
Villanova, Haverford and LaSalle all appeared once and only once on the College Bowl, and that was not by choice.
Villanova was turned back by Brigham Young in their one and only appearance. Haverford lost to Depauw, and LaSalle fell to Arizona State.
Penn holds the dubious distinction for the being the only Philadelphia-area school that appeared twice and lost twice, on the College Bowl. In 1959 the Ivy Leaguers lost to the University of Miami, and in 1967 the University of Texas showed them the door.
By contrast, Temple and Drexel were the only area schools that were undefeated. Temple even managed to post a fifth win.
According to the Facebook Page College Bowl Valhalla, the school that won the final game of the season played in the first game of the next season, unless the final game of the season was their fifth win. This even occurred when the show switched networks; Temple University won their first four games on CBS and their fifth on NBC!
Bryn Mawr College and Swarthmore Posted Winning Records
Bryn College and Swarthmore both came close to matching the otherwise academically-less-prestigious Temple and Drexel’s undefeated champion status, but both fell a little short.
In their fourth match, Bryn Mawr lost to Barnard.
In 1959, Swathmore got to the fourth game but lost to the University of Missouri. When they returned to the College Bowl in 1968, Swarthmore won the maximum four games.
Bryn College’s appearance on G.E. College Bowl was immortalized in Barry Levinson’s 1982 movie, Diner.
Timothy Fenwick, Jr. (“Fen,” played by Kevin Bacon) matches wits with the teams from Cornell and Bryn Mawr College.
Right up there with Appalachian State’s win over Michigan in 2007, as the most improbable upset ever, rests the 1966 College Bowl takedown of Princeton University, by a small women’s school in Decatur, Georgia called Agnes Scott College (enrollment, 1,000).
Slate.com described it – On the tape, the Princeton boys come off as a caricature of what we would expect from Ivy League men. Suited up in matching black jackets, they look right out of a Mad Men episode. They introduce themselves with breezy self-assurance, with names like Jim, Steve, and Frank. They ooze self-confidence.
Their opponents? Four young ladies from a women’s college in Decatur, Georgia, wearing brightly colored dresses and nervous smiles. The students from Agnes Scott have spent months preparing for their debut on College Bowl, telecast live from 30 Rockefeller Plaza on NBC.* The year is 1966. General Electric College Bowl is in its heyday, pitting teams of university students against each other in an intellectual gladiator match.