HCASC FAQ

All 4-year, degree-granting Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) in the continental United States. That is a pool of 89 institutions.

Institutional enrollment is open once a year over the summer (starting in May). The HBCU president or chancellor must complete the enrollment form naming a campus coordinator and a coach (this may be the same person). These forms are sent out by the HCASC office. Email Tisha Lynton Rose or call her toll-free at 800-388-2272 x115 for more enrollment information.

Your only costs are for local publicity and staging. The program supplies:

Game Play Database for use with:
Power Search quizzes
Campus Tournament
Academic team training
HCASC Club

Information Guide detailing how to run the HCASC program

Promotion kit complete with ready-to-customize templates, promotional videos and the HCASC rap "Think Quick"

Additional questions to use in promotion, for radio call-in contests, weekly newspaper quizzes, on your scroller billboard and other uses

Coaching kit with team practice guides, tips, question information and more

Tools for training game officials

Free use of a lockout system (subject to availability)

Effective with the 2011-2012 season, there are two ways to meet the campus game play requirement.

You may either:

1.  Conduct a campus tournament, open to all undergraduate students, with a minimum of 8 teams

2.  Conduct Power Search quiz(zes) with a minimum of 50 students and have an HCASC Club with at least 12 members

For more information on NCT qualification requirements, consult the NCT Qualification Part 1 and NCT Qualification Part 2 pages.

Most schools schedule their tournament at least a month before the end of first semester or fall quarter. The sooner you complete the campus tournament, the sooner your school can begin submitting qualification materials for the National Championship Tournament.

A Power Search is a quick 30 question quiz which students can take to see what type of information is asked in HCASC questions. They give the coach a chance to assess the knowledge base of potential players.

A Power Search is conducted in written form and the sheets are scored. You can promote and run the Power Search in dormatories, in classrooms, at club, fraternity and sorority meetings, in the student union, etc.

We supply 10 Power Search quizzes, so it is possible to have a large number of students try out for HCASC.

The most widelt used format is:

Single-Elimination: Each team plays until they have lost once. This format is the most economical but the least aggressive. The formula for game played is: x-1 where x is the number of teams. For 16 teams, 15 games will be played.

If you have a large number of teams, you can use a single-elimination tournament (in 2 rooms simultaneously) to reduce the number of teams to a smaller number and then have those "finalists" play the finals in a single room. If you need to recruit teams from various areas of the campus, you can run them as divisions, each leading to a champion. Then, the champions play off for the campus championship.

For more information on tournament formats, consult the Program Guide or use the Online Tournament Calculator.

All HCASC schools automatically receive 12 campus program games. Two games are for promotion and demonstration match use. The remaining 10 are used either in a campus tournament or with your HCASC Club and at team practice..

Use the formulas for games played above. You can play games simultaneously and/or sequester teams to reduce the number of game packets needed. Be sure to reserve a game to serve as a back-up game if you are running a campus tournament. If unused, you can use them throughout the year for practice and special exhibition matches.

This depends upon the size of your program. The basic personnel checklist includes:

• Registration personnel

• Program officials (positions are often combined)

  • campus coordinator

  • coach

• Game officials (this is the list for each simultaneous game room)

  • moderator/judge

  • reset/timer/announcer (optional)

  • scorekeeper

Complete our online volunteer application.