Unveiled - Humboldt Magazine - Humboldt State University

Stalking the Big Game
Dave Kitchen: Wildlife Coach Extraordinaire
POP QUIZ: In freeze-tolerant toads, what substance
is released from the liver to prevent cell damage
If you’re an HSU wildlife major, you might know the
answer. If you’re on Professor Dave Kitchen’s Wildlife
Conclave team, you’ll definitely know it.
AND IF YOU’RE AT the National Wildlife Quiz Bowl and you buzz
in with “glycogen,” you were part of the team that walked away
with the national title.
As coach and faculty advisor to the Wildlife Conclave, Kitchen
has led his students to a string of national victories – six in the
last eight years of competition. His office has become so cluttered
with plaques and awards that soon he’ll have to rearrange
furniture to clear space for them all.
The team earned its most recent victory at the 2008 National
Wildlife Quiz Bowl in Miami. As is often the case, it wasn’t a matter
of merely winning. They trounced the competition, which
included schools like Purdue and Texas Tech.
Training is intense. It begins in Wildlife 480, an elective course
open to students of any major. Typically around 40 students enroll,
but only half end up going to the bowl. Kitchen makes sure
the subject matter is close to what working wildlife professionals
encounter in the field.
Students are routinely quizzed on expected subjects: wildlife
policy, biology, ornithology and herpetology. But questions
about chemistry, math and statistics are thrown in to keep students
on their toes.
“New students are overwhelmed by the density of the subject
matter, but the older students will immediately mentor them,”
Kitchen says.
What really sets the HSU team apart is rigorous preparation.
They meet six to nine hours a week outside class and cram facts
as they prepare for the competition. “Dave really gets us ready. He
doesn’t just show us a skull and that’s it. He helps us learn why it’s
that skull, what its unique features are,” says student Leslie Tucci.
To achieve that level of readiness, Kitchen, who has coached
both cheerleading and basketball, pulls out all the stops. “My
little tricks: I’ve been doing this long enough that I know all the
faculty at the other universities. So I know what styles they’re going
to write. It’s what any coach would do,” says Kitchen.
Professor Dave Kitchen leads students through a practice quiz
bowl, complete with red-button buzzers. The trophy case is
spilling over into his office, since Kitchen has led HSU to six
national victories in the last eight years.
The conclave team is gearing up for the 2009 bowl in
Monterey this fall, and it’s a safe bet that trip will include field
trips to get the team shaped up. “Last year at the Miami conference,
we went to the Everglades. We didn’t need a guide,
because we were our own guides. We had somebody who knew
birds, somebody who knew reptiles and we went out and caught
baby alligators all night long,” Kitchen says.
Student Dave Spangenburg, who has spent three semesters
with the conclave, says simply: “He’s so much fun, we don’t want
him to retire.”