Game History

Begun in the 1950s as a Faculty versus Students game on the Stanford campus, Sidney "Lefty" Drell and Burton "Big Daddy" Richter carried this tradition to SLAC and led Theory and Experiment teams to compete for the laboratory championship.  The Post-Game Celebration was traditionally held at the campus home of Sid Drell. 

In 2003, the Bill Kirk Most Valuable Player award was created to pay tribute to Bill who organized, presided over, and played in the annual Theory vs Experiment game for many years.
In 2007, the competing teams were changed to Accelerator and Research to enable lab-wide participation in this venerable annual event.  The Accelerator  team comprises players contributing to existing and future accelerators, while Research combines the formerly competing Theory and Experiment teams and all SLAC staff and users involved in research at SLAC.

This historical data was assembled by reviewing lab periodicals. Where no scores are available, the winning team has been designated with a W. It is believed - but not documented - that 1974 was the first win by Theory and that in 1988 the record was 28-3 in favor of Experiment. Additions and corrections to this record are appreciated. Updates to the official record will be made after conferring with appropriate referees.