[en] The possibility is considered that the shape of the ground state configuration of a system of quarks interacting with a real scalar field is nonspherical. This is explored through application of the variational principle to a simple model field theory of quarks coupled linearly to a real scalar field. Trial functions are, by construction, eigenstates of linear and angular momentum and correspond to quarks confined by an ellipsoidal well of major axis, a, and minor axis, b, with zero depth and height g phi₀, where g is the quark-scalar particle coupling constant. The parameters a, b, and phi₀ are determined such that their values minimize the total energy of the system. These variations are carried out in the limit when the renormalized scalar particle mass, μ, is taken to infinity and the energy takes on a semi-classical form. Furthermore, in the renormalized limit (i.e., when the renormalization cutoff goes to infinity) it is found that the energy depends on two finite arbitrary constants and that there exists a minimum of the energy for which the eccentricity of the confining well is nonzero. In fact, the spherical configuration is unstable and of higher energy. The model is applied to hadron spectroscopy for the low lying (mass < 2 GeV) nonstrange baryons with j less than or equal to 3/2. 15 references