Honda Campus All-Star Challenge
A program centering on a National Championship Tournament held in March of each year since 1990 for historically black colleges and universities, operated by College Bowl and sponsored by Honda. All the way to the end of the College Bowl campus program, HCASC participants could not play in the College Bowl series, due to recycling of questions between the two events.
The name also refers to a small circuit of tournaments, advertised as "preparatory" HCASC Pre-NCT tournaments, which are run and attended by HCASC programs on questions supplied by College Bowl.
Until 1996, participants in HCASC were barred by College Bowl from playing in any quizbowl tournaments, on penalty of disqualification from HCASC.
From 1996 until fall 1999, HCASC schools were only allowed to play in "licensed tourmaments;" that is, events which signed a statement claiming that College Bowlhad a trademark on intercollegiate academic competition. This rule was eventually dropped as well.
This policy was reversed following the campaign of individuals such as Albert Whited, who referred to the policy as being racist, and in spite of College Bowl supporters such as Tom Michael, Chris Sloan, and Hayden Hurst, who either defended the policy outright or condemned Whited for his "intemperate" language.
Since the lifting of the ban, teams such as Morehouse and Langston have ventured to quizbowl tournaments with some success.
The HCASC was televised on BET for several years in the 1990s.
HCASC top finishers/locations
Links
- HCASC Sample Questions: http://www.hcasc.com/games/samples.asp
- "Pre-NCT Tournaments": http://www.hcasc.com/tmts/prenct.asp
- National Champions List: http://www.collegequizbowl.org/Maize/maizeresults.html