Early Autumn Collegiate Novice
The Early Autumn Collegiate Novice Tournament (EACN), sometimes shortened to Collegiate Novice or improperly called ACF Novice, was an annual, ACF-sponsored, strictly novice-only collegiate tournament designed as an introduction for players who were entirely new to collegiate quizbowl. Andrew Hart conceived of, edited, and solicited host sites to run the first iteration of Collegiate Novice in September and October 2010.
The goal of EACN was to "be the immediate positive competitive experience that new players need to get hooked on the game";[1] as such, host sites were often close together, with an emphasis on minimizing travel time for all teams involved. The first edition of Collegiate Novice had twenty sites.[2]
EACN occurred four times from 2010 to 2013. In 2014, Andrew was unable to produce the set, so Fred Morlan and Nicholas Karas wrote a tournament in the same spirit called the Introductory Collaborative Collegiate Set, or ICCS. Since 2015, the role of EACN has been largely superseded by the NAQT Collegiate Novice series.
The tournament consisted of ten packets. Tossups were strictly capped at five lines of text, and most bonus parts were well under two lines.
Eligibility
The original eligibility restrictions were as follows:[3]
- All ACF eligibility rules apply, except when they contradict the rules below.
- This is a tournament for introducing collegiate novices to quizbowl. Consequently, no high school teams or players are eligible.
- Anyone (who does not break Rules 1 or 2) who has never played quizbowl before is automatically eligible. Other academic competition does not count as quizbowl for this rule.
- Players meeting one or more of the following criteria must apply to the head editor for special permission to play:
- If you have already completed your second year of college (calculated from time in college, not credits). Time in a post-secondary high school program does not count.
- If you were ever on a playoff or top-bracket team at NAQT HSNCT or PACE NSC.
- If you have ever scored at least 30 points per game at any college tournament.
- If you have ever won any college tournament.
- Anyone who does not fall into any of the four categories listed in Rule 4 is automatically eligible to play.