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(not-so trivial pursuit, cont.) The Discovery of Oz, the Wonderful, the Terrible Oliva has an unassuming disposition, his smile hardened into his features after 58 years of use, with kind eyes behind thin-rimmed frames and curly bed-head hair radiating from his scalp. He exudes a hint of a rebel, one seduced long ago by rock ’n’ roll and Hollywood’s Golden Age. Oliva’s path to becoming Oz and moving to Stevens Point was one of serendipity and nuns. A wide variety of interests and hobbies fed his interest in pop culture and an intense lifestyle strengthened and trained his memory. He went to an all-boys Catholic middle school and high school, where nuns were teachers and diagramming 25 sentences a night was the norm. During the summer, while polio was a constant threat outside, little Jimmy Oliva spent most of his time away from neighbors and on the floor inside, head resting on palms and watching everything from both the Republican and Democratic National Conventions to the McCarthy hearings. Television would later have to compete with his long-standing love for music when he made for the local rock radio station one night on a whim and learned to spin. After a decade-long peripatetic career, Oliva eventually earned a degree in education, later teaching junior high. All of these things would come into play much later when Oliva moved to Stevens Point, discovered 90 FM and asked for a job. He was on air inside the hour. A few years later, Oliva took over the reins of the contest and immediately revamped its personality, upping the competitiveness and expanding the format. Today he takes pleasure in answering the complaint line throughout the weekend, having finally finished writing the questions and triple checking them. During those 54 hours he spends all but seven on the phone. “It’s a game…I want to be a smart ass, a blowhard. I want to play the role of Oz.” ( Flugaur recalls playing for that first time and discovering Oz himself answers the complaint line. “I just couldn’t believe it was actually him - Oz! - using the phone like he was like an everyday Joe.”) Oliva remembers a heated phone conversation with Network a few years back. A player from the team was arguing that while Oz claimed the mayor of a show’s town was Becker Chamreta, Network had an episode guide in hand saying the actual mayor was none other than Bob Benido. After a few minutes’ back-and-forth, there was a pause on Oliva’s end, then, simply: “I am Oz.” The conversation ended there. Do not arouse the wrath of the great and powerful. Home Again Stevens Point mayor Gary Wescott claims the contest is like “a real live-action game,” but for many the true spirit has little to do with the contest itself. “It’s the ultimate holiday,” Flugaur says. “It is better than Christmas because Christmas is one day with family … trivia is an entire weekend spent with friends.” For most, though, trivia is an annual reunion of both family and friends. “It doesn’t matter where you live or where you are in your life,” Phillippi says with a smile, “those three days are marked off years in advance and that weekend you know you’ll be in Stevens Point.” Beeber nods with a smile of her own. Her closest comparison to the contest, on a grander scale, is a UW Badgers football game. “There is something special there that brings back alumni time and time again. They love coming back for it, and I think trivia does the same. If you graduate from Stevens Point, even if you move away you will want to come back. This offers an excuse. There aren’t many people who don’t like Point.” Indeed, there is no place like home. For those short three days, when the Stevens Point community reunites for the game, a wizard smiles behind his curtain.
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