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<\/a>Zerrick Hilliard Spelman College hosted the 2015 National Qualifying Tournament (NQT) of Honda Challenge All-Star Change (HSCASC) team\u2019s 26th<\/sup> season of competition on Jan. 3 in Atlanta, Ga.<\/p>\n Jackson State\u2019s team competed alongside teams from Spelman, Morehouse, Mississippi Valley, and Tennessee State among other historically black universities.<\/p>\n Despite the competition taking place, there was a deep sense of comradery, which was one of the goals of the organization when it first began in 1989. Since then, the organization has awarded more than $7.5 million to the participating institutions. Jackson State is one of 91 HBCUs qualified to participate in the HSCASC.<\/p>\n The largest part of organizing tournaments stems from the research that goes into selecting which information that goes into questions, as pointed out by tournament director, Charles Henderson. Aside from this, a large amount of effort also goes into hosting the NQTs, such as the event at Spelman. Henderson has been involved with HCASC for 22 years, including time as a volunteer at events and as an official tournament organizer for the organization.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re simultaneously running seven sites at the same time to make this happen,\u201d said Henderson. \u201cIn terms of getting ready for Nationals, it\u2019s just making sure that all teams are qualified because we\u2019re only taking 48 teams when once we used to take 64 teams.\u201d<\/p>\n Amy Seastone, another tournament director, said that preparing and organizing the HCASC events is a year round program.<\/p>\n \u201cWe only have a staff of about 8 people and off site writers that write questions year round,\u201d said Seastone.<\/p>\n Seastone also said that keeping in contact with schools to keep promoting the clubs promoted is a big part because of the risk of students losing interest.<\/p>\n \u201cSo in regards to the game and in regards to the hotels and all of that stuff you have to get set up for the big event, all of that is already laid out. Most of the preparation comes from \u2018who are we going to book to blow to the student\u2019s minds at the closing night banquet?\u2019 What kind of excursions are we going to give the students when they come to Los Angeles? What can we provide them throughout the year to promote the event itself?\u201d said Seastone.<\/p>\n The event also featured skirmish matches for both team members not competing in the main tournament and teams that were in between rounds. These matches open the way for students to meet and compete against likeminded individuals as well as expand their own knowledge.<\/p>\n Larry Brown II, a sophomore emergency management technology major said that going into his second tournament season, he wants to compete more.<\/p>\n \u201cBeing a rookie, I really can\u2019t do much, but I\u2019ve been really trying. You have to compete with people who have been doing this for years. Sometimes since high school,\u201d said Brown.<\/p>\n Brown was active in several skirmish matches during the event against Morehouse and North Carolina Central University.<\/p>\n Jackson State\u2019s own team made it to the semi-finals against Morehouse. Morehouse went on to win the finals against Bethune-Cookman University with the final score of 330 to 515.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Zerrick Hilliard MC Contributor\/Staff Spelman College hosted the 2015 National Qualifying Tournament (NQT) of Honda Challenge All-Star Change (HSCASC) team\u2019s 26th season of competition on…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"editor_plus_post_options":"{}","editor_plus_copied_stylings":"{}","_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5130"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5130\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/strong>MC Contributor\/Staff<\/strong><\/p>\n