Unable to reserve a table, he resorted to waving a sign at the UW club fair saying, “Do you like to wear fancy pants?”

In retrospect, transfer student Cory Potts said, “My performance starting the club was really poor.”

No one signed up for the UW Mock Trial team Potts was attempting to start, but word spread.

A girl saw the sign, jotted down the information and was talking about it before her Italian class. Nick Crown, walking into class, happened to overhear the conversation. He had participated in a high-school version of mock trial.

From the moment he contacted Potts and learned he was from a past rival high school team, Crown was hooked.

“I thought we’d be able to join forces,” Crown said. “I got really excited.”

That was in 2007.

A few weeks ago, the young mock trial team took part in its first competition in Spokane. The seven competing members surprised themselves with a win against WSU’s varsity team of mock trial veterans.

The win boosted the members’ confidence, preparing them for the American Mock Trial Association (AMTA) regional tournament in Oregon over Presidents’ Day weekend.

After a rough start Friday, the team bounced back with a 6-2 record, winning three awards — including the Spirit of AMTA, or congeniality, award by unanimous vote — and qualifying for the AMTA nationals in California.

“We were kind of the Cinderella story,” Crown said. “No one was really expecting us to do well.”

A small room in Thomson Hall serves as the team’s meeting place three days a week, for at least three hours each day. The light yellow walls contained the laughter Tuesday night following their intense weekend in Oregon.

Along with Crown and Potts, member Russell Pharr and captain Brett Rubio met on the team’s day off to describe mock trial.

Assigned fictitious cases, teams prepare both the prosecution and defense sides to argue cases. The tournaments are simulations, requiring knowledge of the law and thorough familiarity with the etiquette of real trials.

Granted, it’s “scholarly and really intellectual,” Pharr said, but it’s balanced with a fun side often unnoticed by onlookers.

He described his favorite witness he plays — a nerdy, goofy janitor who dresses oddly.

“I have a Gumby tie,” Pharr said.

Practices become rehearsals where lines are refined through repetition.

The theatrical aspect probably confuses a lot of passersby who happen to stumble on the practicing members. The group laughed in recollection of some weekend memories.

Imitating Potts, Crown’s voice became rough and accusing, “Well, what do you mean when you’re talking about journalistic ethics?” In imitation of a female teammate, his voice jumped a few notes but remained equally strong, “Well, I was looking at this, this and that ...”

Potts had been practicing a direct examination, but the passersby who witnessed the two standing in their pajamas in the hotel’s hallway probably thought it was a heated argument between a couple on Valentine’s Day, said Potts.

Also during the weekend, senior team member Camden Swita was pacing in front of a glass door and arguing about a gun on the ground and blood everywhere.

Meanwhile, parents were pushing their kids out of the room, urging them to keep moving, joked Potts. Swita is also a Daily staff reporter.

The dedication to refine lines and arguments and master professional delivery has progressed a long way since the team’s beginning.

Last year, the team struggled to stay together — many quit and others never showed for meetings. Unfunded by the university, the team struggled financially.

But the new year found an ambitious group of students, consisting of three females and four males, with years spanning from freshman to senior and majors ranging from forestry and history to English and French.

The group began with a determined goal: “We don’t care how well we’re going to do,” Crown said. “We’re just going to try and get [to Portland] and do it.”

Determination is essential for a self-coached and self-financed team such as this one.

“I was just reading, Yale sent two of their teams to regionals in Jamaica,” Potts said, amazed by the extent of financial support from some schools.

But the team maintains a positive outlook.

“I think it makes it better in a way because we are more invested in our team than the schools who just give us the money,” Potts said.

However, if offered the chance, “we’d definitely take the money,” Pharr added.

But by going out and having to raise the money themselves, there’s more on the line in the tournaments, members agreed.

“It makes us work harder,” Potts said. “We don’t let any chance slip by in the trial for us to make points. So when another team might just be being lax and saying, ‘We’ll get it next time,’ or something like that, we’re letting nothing get by us.”

And while the team doesn’t have a coach, they do have Rubio, a UW assistant professor of military science who serves as the team’s faculty advisor.

Having participated in mock trial his junior year in college, he wanted to foster the same appreciation he developed for the program, Rubio said, dressed in his U.S. Army uniform.

Besides helping with paperwork, he offers support — whether it’s financial or cheering on the team at meetings and competitions.

“I want them to know the university’s behind them in some shape or form,” Rubio said. “I consider myself one of their biggest cheerleaders.”

Next year, the team plans to recruit enough members to form two teams. To encourage membership, they’re hoping to work with the academic offices to get credits assigned to mock trial.

But for now, the seven students are preparing hard for nationals.

“We go down wanting to be the best and most surprising team there,” Potts said.

Aside from the registration fee, paid for by Rubio, the members are financing their own way to California. Heading to nationals, the UW team stands out as unique, marked by each member’s determination and motivation.

“We’re establishing a history,” Crown said.

Reach reporter Joy Yagi at features@dailyuw.com.