Boston College
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50 free Boston College trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Boston College is a university that kept the name of a small city school, and its story is fuller of surprises than a campus tour lets on. It began as a day school for the sons of immigrants, moved to a hilltop in Chestnut Hill, and went on to produce Cabinet members, Hollywood names, a Heisman Trophy winner and one of the most replayed finishes in football. This quiz collects the best fun facts about Boston College in one place. Expect founders and early presidents, the stories behind campus buildings and the mascot, big nights for Eagles football, hockey and basketball, and alumni who turned up in comedy, film, finance and politics. A few questions would sit comfortably on a Jeopardy board. It is written for students, alumni and families planning a visit, and for anyone who enjoys university trivia. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you pick up the backstory even when you guess wrong.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Boston College quarterback's last-second 1984 touchdown pass gave his name to a surge in college applications?
Doug Flutie
Doug Flutie won the Heisman Trophy a week after the pass, and the 'Flutie effect' has come to mean any admissions bump that follows a sporting triumph.
Q 02Which defending national champion did Boston College beat 47–45 on a last-second Hail Mary pass in November 1984?
Miami
Miami lost at home in the Orange Bowl when receiver Gerard Phelan caught the 48-yard throw in the end zone as time ran out.
Q 03Which Catholic religious order, also behind Georgetown and Fordham, founded Boston College in 1863?
The Jesuits
The Jesuits, formally the Society of Jesus, taught pupils whose average age in the early years was just fourteen.
Q 04Boston College graduate Tom McCarthy directed which Best Picture winner about Boston Globe reporters?
Spotlight
Spotlight also won McCarthy the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, decades after he performed improv comedy as a Boston College undergraduate.
Q 05Which Parks and Recreation star joined the improv troupe My Mother's Fleabag as a Boston College student?
Amy Poehler
Amy Poehler graduated in 1993 and moved to Chicago, where she took her first formal improv class on the way to Saturday Night Live.
Q 06Boston College finance graduate Harry Markopolos warned the SEC for years about which financier's giant Ponzi scheme?
Bernie Madoff
Bernie Madoff was reported to the SEC by Markopolos in 2000, 2001 and 2005, yet the fraud ran on until it collapsed in December 2008.
Q 07Which Martin Scorsese film follows Henry Hill, the mobster who helped fix Boston College basketball games in 1978–79?
Goodfellas
Goodfellas tells Hill's life story, and his testimony at a 1981 trial helped convict Boston College center Rick Kuhn, who was sentenced to ten years.
Q 08Which viral 2014 craze did former Boston College baseball captain Pete Frates spread after his ALS diagnosis?
Ice Bucket Challenge
Ice Bucket Challenge videos raised roughly $220 million for ALS research after Frates, diagnosed at 27, helped the idea reach a national audience.
Q 09Which Celtic punk band recorded the Boston College fight song 'For Boston' on its 2001 album Sing Loud, Sing Proud!?
Dropkick Murphys
Dropkick Murphys covered a tune written by a member of the class of 1885, one often called America's oldest college fight song.
Q 10Boston College graduate Erik Weihenmayer became the first blind climber to reach the top of which mountain in 2001?
Mount Everest
Mount Everest was only the start: by 2002 he had climbed the highest peak on every continent, and he later kayaked the length of the Grand Canyon.
Q 11Which architectural style, inspired by medieval Oxford, shapes Boston College's Chestnut Hill campus?
Collegiate Gothic
Collegiate Gothic arrived with architect Charles Maginnis, whose 1908 plan for an 'Oxford in America' went on to influence campuses across North America.
Q 12Which color names the MBTA subway line whose B branch ends at Boston College station?
Green
Green Line streetcars have ended their runs at the spot since 1900, years before the college moved there, and the B branch is also called the Boston College branch.
Q 13Which annual February hockey tournament pits Boston College against Boston University, Harvard and Northeastern?
The Beanpot
Q 21Which Boston College building with a 200-foot bell tower stood alone on the new Chestnut Hill campus for three years?
Gasson Hall
Gasson Hall opened in 1913 as the Tower Building, after construction costs outran the funds and left nothing for its planned neighbors.
Q 22In which Boston neighborhood did Boston College teach its first classes before moving to Chestnut Hill?
South End
South End land on Harrison Avenue was bought for the school in 1857, and by 1907 a new president judged the cramped city site unfit for expansion.
Q 23Which priest, an Army chaplain in the Mexican–American War, bought the land for Boston College in 1857?
John McElroy
The Beanpot began in the 1952–53 season and usually fills TD Garden on the first two Mondays of the month, with city bragging rights at stake.
Q 14Which national title contender did Boston College stun 41–39 in 1993 on David Gordon's field goal as time expired?
Notre Dame
Notre Dame had rallied from 38–17 down to lead before the 41-yard kick, which gave the Eagles their first win in the series and a Sports Illustrated cover.
Q 15Which Boston College quarterback went third overall to the Atlanta Falcons in 2008 and later won an NFL MVP award?
Matt Ryan
Matt Ryan, nicknamed Matty Ice, was the league's MVP for 2016 and took the Falcons to Super Bowl LI that season.
Q 16Which Speaker of the US House, a 1936 Boston College graduate, gave his name to the university's main library?
Tip O'Neill
Tip O'Neill held the gavel from 1977 to 1987, the longest unbroken run of any Speaker, and the library carrying his name opened in 1984.
Q 17Which Massachusetts senator and presidential candidate earned his law degree at Boston College in 1976?
John Kerry
John Kerry entered the law school in 1973, two years after he testified to a Senate committee against the Vietnam War as a decorated veteran.
Q 18Which item inspires the special uniforms Boston College teams wear each year to honor 9/11 hero Welles Crowther?
A red bandanna
A red bandanna shielded the 1999 graduate from smoke as he led people down from the 78th floor of the World Trade Center before losing his own life.
Q 19Which Boston Celtics legend coached the Boston College men's basketball team from 1963 to 1969?
Bob Cousy
Bob Cousy had turned the school down as a recruit because it had no dormitories, then took the coaching job the year he retired as a player.
Q 20Which Star Trek actor, raised in Boston's West End, took drama classes at Boston College before moving to Los Angeles?
Leonard Nimoy
Leonard Nimoy later paid his way into the Pasadena Playhouse with $600 he had saved from selling vacuum cleaners.
John McElroy, born in Enniskillen, served among the first Catholic chaplains in the US Army and lived to 95, long enough to see his college open.
Q 24Boston College's live 1960s eagle mascot was named Margo as a blend of which two school colors?
Maroon and gold
Maroon and gold gave Margo her name; the young bird lived at Franklin Park Zoo and came to home games until she died of a virus in 1966.
Q 25Which name does Boston College's costumed eagle mascot carry, played by students who stay anonymous until graduation?
Baldwin
Baldwin joins 'bald', for the bald eagle, to 'win'; the costume replaced live birds once eagles had become an endangered species.
Q 26Boston College's Greek motto, translated as 'Ever to Excel', comes from which ancient epic poem?
The Iliad
The Iliad gives the phrase to the warrior Glaucus, who tells Diomedes it was his father's instruction when sending him to Troy.
Q 27Which conference did Boston College help found in 1979 and then leave for the ACC in 2005?
The Big East
The Big East began as a basketball league of seven Northeastern schools, and the Eagles were its only Catholic member to play football in the league.
Q 28Which future Batman Forever star finished a Boston College marketing degree in 1992?
Chris O'Donnell
Chris O'Donnell graduated the year Scent of a Woman came out, a breakout role opposite Al Pacino that brought him a Golden Globe nomination.
Q 29Which Boston College linebacker went ninth overall in the 2012 NFL draft and won Defensive Player of the Year in 2013?
Luke Kuechly
Luke Kuechly was the youngest winner the award had seen, and the Eagles, for whom he was twice a consensus All-American, retired his number 40.
Q 30Which trophy for college hockey's best player did Boston College winger Johnny Gaudreau win in 2014?
Hobey Baker Award
The Hobey Baker Award followed a season of 36 goals and 80 points in 40 games for the New Jersey native, whom fans called Johnny Hockey.