AKRON, Ohio – A Northeast Ohio trivia team that has dominated online competitions across North America is one of six nominees vying to be a 2020 inductee of the Trivia Hall of Fame.

The group of about 25 Akron-area residents, dubbed “The Fellowship,” is listed under the name of their leader and statistician, Kevin Kern. The Fellowship has broken records and consistently led the Buzztime Trivia Network’s Showdown rankings each year since 2008.

This year’s other finalists include record-breaking “Jeopardy!” champion James Holzhauer; Sharon Burns and Tom Porter, who started pub quizzes in England in the mid 1970s; Siddhartha Basu, regarded as the “Father of Indian television quizzing;” United Kingdom game show winner Pat Gibson; and Jim “Oz” Oliva, host of the WWSP 90-FM annual 54-hour marathon radio trivia contest based out of Stevens Point, Wisconsin.

To vote, visit https://www.triviahalloffame.com/vote/vote.php.

The Ottawa-based Trivia Hall of Fame has inducted dozens of legends in the trivia world, including “Jeopardy!” champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, the inventors of the Trivial Pursuit board game – Chris Haney and Scott Abbott - and game show hosts Alex Trebek, Art Fleming, Allen Ludden, Merv Griffin and Regis Philbin.

“I think, frankly, we are underdogs,” Kern, who competes under the screen name “ANON,” told cleveland.com. “We’re up against James Holzhauer… these international figures… so, I think we sort of start at a disadvantage in the fact that we’re a regional entity.

“But, I’ve seen what Northeast Ohioans have done,” he said. “Northeast Ohioans are justifiably proud of their local institutions and I really do think that if people from Northeast Ohio pull together and share this on social media and encourage their friends and family to vote for us, then we can get Northeast Ohio in this hall of fame.”

The Fellowship - named after the group in “The Lord of the Rings” since some of the players’ screen names include “FRODO” and “ELROND” – got its start in 2003 at the now-closed Damon’s in Stow, and most recently played on Tuesday nights at the Red Fox Sports Pub & Grille in Cuyahoga Falls.

The team, made up of many professors and alumni of the University of Akron, competes against players from around the world in Buzztime trivia.

“People who play this game, Showdown, they know that this has been the best team for more than a dozen years now,” Kern said. “But to have that recognition extend beyond that smaller pond into the larger pond – it’s very gratifying.”

In addition to UA professors, Kern said the team is made up of people from various backgrounds, including doctors, lawyers, human resource managers and a car mechanic.

“You might go for weeks without being able to provide a unique answer, where you’re the only one shouting out the answer,” he said. “But maybe you’ll get one of those late-game answers that saves the team and wins the game, and it may be because you’re a car mechanic and you know that little widget that goes in the engine, or maybe is because of one of your hobbies, you know the knitting question… That is, I think, what has made us so successful, is the fact that we’ve been able to pull together people from all walks of life, and it really is a team ethos: all for one, and one for all.”

Kern said he doesn’t know who nominated the team for the Trivia Hall of Fame, and only learned about the nomination when the Hall contacted him in September. Only individuals, and not groups, can be inducted, so the team held a vote on which person’s name would be listed, along with “et al.”

“I was very humbled that the team voted overwhelmingly for me as the one avatar representing the whole team,” said Kern. “But we’re all in this together.”