Sam Brandt really knows his place(s).

Byline: Bob Welch / The Register-Guard

Sam Brandt and I both live in Eugene, like the Boston Red Sox and are fascinated by maps. But, intellectually, we're about as far apart as the north rim of the Grand Canyon from the south.

When it comes to geographic knowledge, Sam is Mount Everest; I'm Death Valley.

He's the Nile. I'm the lower Long Tom. In a drought year.

I confess, I was naive when I showed up at the Brandts' Fox Hollow-area house to interview the young man who leaves Friday for Washington, D.C., with one quest: to win the National Geographic Bee.

I knew the kid was a geography whiz but, in my Luxembourgian mind, that meant he might, say, know all the state capitals, where the Nile River is and that big country that borders Belgium to the east.

I didn't expect that, when quizzed, he could name the countries bordering Mali in Africa (Mauritania, Algeria, Niger, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Guinea and Senegal), the languages spoken in Haiti (French and Creole) and the currencies of virtually all 193 countries.

That he could, after hearing snippets of music, identify most national anthems. Or that he could, in talking about the Republic of Congo, identify the Oubangi River.

Sam Brandt is Marco Polo with braces.

"He was reading street signs at 2," his mother, Sara Brandt, says. "My dad remembers driving around with him and suddenly Sam says, `Char-nel-ton.' '

When Sam and I watched a tape of last year's national championship, host Alex Trebek, of "Jeopardy" fame, gave the finalists the names of three cities - Johannesburg, Jerusalem and Jakarta - then asked 10 questions whose answer was one of the three.

The finalists nailed every one. "They always give easy questions in the first rounds," Brandt says. (I, ahem, was 2-for-10.)

"I'm a very analytical person," says Sam, an eighth-grader at Roosevelt Middle School. "In preschool, I memorized all the state capitals and flags - and, well, the schedules of my teachers."

Here's the likeable thing about Sam Brandt. He may be able to list every country in the world alphabetically - "Afghanistan, Algeria, Angola ...' - but he's no one-dimensional nerd. He plays hoops, hangs out with friends, cleans his room only when the press show up - and yet may know more about geography than almost any other fourth-through-eighth-grader in the nation.

He's won three state titles in a row, placed sixth in the nation two years ago and tied for 15th last year. What happened in 2004?

"I only got three hours' sleep the night before," he says. His roommate, a fellow competitor, had taken a nap the previous day, setting the alarm for 3 - but a.m., not p.m. "So in the middle of the night this alarm goes off and I can't figure out how to shut it off, so it's going off every 10 minutes."

He's much better at figuring out maps, 21 of which adorn his room.

"My goal is to win it all," Sam says. If he does, he would qualify for the National Geographic World Championship in Budapest in July.

Sara and Jonathan Brandt aren't fame-hungry parents, hiring tutors and setting up stringent practice schedules. Still, Sam has been studying five to six hours a day, going over his handwritten notes on each country, scouring atlases and being quizzed.

Contestants will have 15 seconds to answer questions in Tuesday's preliminary rounds, only 12 in Wednesday's final. The winner gets a $25,000 scholarship from event sponsor National Geographic.

Sam has visualized the moment of victory. "Alex Trebek says, `And the winner of the 2005 National Geographic Bee: Sam Brandt of Oregon!' ' Sam clenches his fists together and mouths the word "Yes!"

No Oregonian has ever won. I believe Sam can be the first - if only he takes the advice from an unlikely - and uninvited - mentor: me.

Find a roommate from a geographic region where people know how to set alarms.