The Academic Competition Federation (ACF) is an organization, founded as the Academic Competition Foundation in 1991, that runs a national championship for collegiate

quiz bowl Quiz bowl (quizbowl, scholars' bowl, scholastic bowl, academic bowl, academic team, academic challenge, etc.) is a family of quiz-based competitions that test players on Outline of academic disciplines, a wide variety of academic subjects. Stand ...

as well as other tournaments.

History

During the mid-1980s, several schools began to prepare for

College Bowl ''College Bowl'' (which has carried a naming rights sponsor, initially General Electric and later Capital One) is a radio, television, and student quiz show. ''College Bowl'' first aired on the NBC Radio Network in 1953 as ''College Quiz Bowl'' ...

's regional and national tournaments by holding independent invitationals, during which players became unsatisfied with College Bowl's questions. Several scandals soon emerged, in which the 1988 College Bowl Regionals were found to have recycled nearly all of their questions from the 1982 College Bowl Regionals, independent tournaments were threatened with lawsuits from College Bowl, and the 1983 and 1985 College Bowl National Championship Tournaments were cancelled. In response to these concerns, the

University of Maryland The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the Univ ...

and

University of Tennessee The University of Tennessee, Knoxville (or The University of Tennessee; UT; UT Knoxville; or colloquially UTK or Tennessee) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Knoxville, Tennessee, United St ...

stopped participating in College Bowl, followed a few years later by the

Georgia Institute of Technology The Georgia Institute of Technology (commonly referred to as Georgia Tech, GT, and simply Tech or the Institute) is a public university, public research university and Institute of technology (United States), institute of technology in Atlanta, ...

and a steadily increasing number schools. In the fall of 1990, the then-coach of the University of Tennessee team Carol Guthrie joined with a few University of Maryland team members to found the Academic Competition Foundation. In 1991, they held the first ACF Nationals, which was won by the host Tennessee team over Georgia Tech. While departing from College Bowl's structure, the tournament initially included a few elements carried over from College Bowl games. Those elements were later removed. No ACF Nationals tournament was held in 1992, but, beginning in 1993, Regionals and Nationals tournaments were held every year. By 1996, ACF Nationals was attracting 40 teams, but after the 1997 Nationals, Carol Guthrie announced that she and co-founder Jim Dendy were each resigning, and that ACF would go defunct. In 1996, a new company called National Academic Quiz Tournaments (1996) was formed. NAQT was more organized than ACF in several respects, yet also included College Bowl-like features in their questions.

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States. It was founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson and contains his The Lawn, Academical Village, a World H ...

student Andrew Yaphe thus organized the Academic Competition Federation to continue running the Regional and National tournaments along with John Sheahan and David Hamilton. The 1999 Nationals saw the first presentation of the Dr. N. Gordon Carper Lifetime Achievement Award, which recognizes individuals "for meritorious services in sustaining and enriching collegiate academic competitions." Following the rise to popularity of NAQT, the decline of

, and longstanding complaints about the difficulty of ACF, a decision was made in 2001 to focus on the accessibility of Academic Competition Federation tournaments. Despite those efforts, however, only sixteen teams attended ACF Nationals in 2001, and the future of the tournament seemed tenuous. Thus, a third, easier tournament, ACF Fall, was conceived by

University of Kentucky The University of Kentucky (UK, UKY, or U of K) is a Public University, public Land-grant University, land-grant research university in Lexington, Kentucky, United States. Founded in 1865 by John Bryan Bowman as the Agricultural and Mechanical ...

player Kelly McKenzie, star player of the

team, and held in November 2001. This three-tournament lineup continued to 2009, then again from 2011 to 2019, with a fourth, intermediate difficulty, "ACF Winter" tournament held as part of the current circuit, as well as in 2009-10

Format

An ACF game consists of twenty ten-point tossups with thirty-point bonuses, a format now widely used by various collegiate and high school quiz bowl tournaments. The ACF finals format is unique in that it involves awarding a tournament title outright to a team which is two or more games ahead in the standings of the second-place team at the end of the tournament proper. If two teams are tied, a one-game winner-take-all final is played. An advantaged final of up to two games is played if the first-place team is exactly one game ahead of the second-place team.

ACF Tournaments

Overview

ACF tournaments follow the packet submission model, where editors organize the writing project and teams submit questions which will be used in competition. Depending on the experience of the players on a given team, that team may need to submit questions that will either comprise the entirety of a 20-tossup, 20-bonus packet, or that will be combined by editors with the question submissions of one or more teams to produce a full packet.

ACF Fall

ACF Fall is intended to be an easy college tournament for new college players or players with limited high school quiz bowl experience. ACF fall is played concurrently each year throughout the United States and internationally in Canada and the United Kingdom. With over 200 teams participating across all sites, ACF fall is the most-widely played college set in a given year. ACF Fall follows the packet-submission model.

ACF Winter

In 2009 and 2010, ACF organized the ACF Winter tournament. The target difficulty for ACF Winter was that of a regular college tournament, i.e. more difficult than ACF Fall and easier than ACF Regionals. In February 2020, ACF announced that it will be releasing ACF Winter again for the 2020-2021 season onwards.

ACF Regionals

ACF Regionals is the regular-difficulty (more difficult that ACF Fall) college tournament by which teams may qualify for ACF Nationals. In 2020, there were 11 concurrent ACF Regionals tournaments in the United States, 2 in Canada, and one in the United Kingdom. ACF Regionals follows the packet-submission model.

ACF Nationals

ACF Nationals is the final ACF tournament each season, and it has been run for more than 25 years. With the 48 strongest teams in the United States, Canada, and United Kingdom competing together at a single tournament location, the questions at ACF Nationals are more difficult than those at ACF Regionals.

Past ACF Tournaments

Early Autumn Collegiate Novice

EACN was an ACF-sponsored collegiate novice tournament written and competed on from 2010 to 2013. With stricter eligibility requirements than ACF Fall, EACN was intended to be an introduction to collegiate quiz bowl for people who had not played previously.

ACF Nationals results

Carper Award recipients

Dr. N. Gordon Carper Lifetime Achievement Award was established in 1999 to honor individuals for meritorious services in sustaining and enriching collegiate academic competitions. The award is presented annually to a member of the quizbowl community who exhibits the kind of dedication to and long-term support of academic competitions as exemplified by career of Dr. Carper. Beginning in 2019, ACF empowered a committee of former Carper winners who are also ACF members to select a second winner. * 1999: Dr. N. Gordon Carper, coach at

Berry College Berry College is a private university in the Mount Berry community adjacent to Rome, Georgia. It is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS). Berry College was founded on values based on Christian principles in 1 ...

* 2000: Dr. Carol Guthrie, former coach at the

* 2001: Dr. Robert Meredith, coach at the

* 2002: Not presented * 2003: Eric Hillemann, coach at

Carleton College Carleton College ( ) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Northfield, Minnesota, United States. Founded in 1866, the main campus is between Northfield and the approximately Carleton ...

* 2004: Don Windham, ACF co-founder and Gaius Stern, of the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

* 2005: Charlie Steinhice, coach at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga * 2006: R. Robert Hentzel, president of National Academic Quiz Tournaments * 2007: Andrew Yaphe, player at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

* 2008: Chris Sewell, developer of the SQBS statistics program * 2009: Ezequiel Berdichevsky, ACF editor * 2010: Subash Maddipoti, former player at the University of Chicago and the

University of Illinois The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United ...

* 2011: Dr. Seth Teitler, former player at the University of Chicago and the University of California, Berkeley * 2012: Jeff Hoppes, former player at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

and the University of California, Berkeley * 2013: Matt Weiner, tournament organizer and question set editor * 2014: Dr. Susan Ferrari, former player at the University of Chicago * 2015: Dr. Jerry Vinokurov, former player at the University of California, Berkeley and

Brown University Brown University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. It is the List of colonial colleges, seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the US, founded in 1764 as the ' ...

* 2016: Andrew Hart, former player at the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota Twin Cities (historically known as University of Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint ...

* 2017: Jonathan Magin, former player at the

* 2018: Mike Bentley, former player at the University of Maryland and the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...

* 2019: Rob Carson, former player at the University of Minnesota; and Kelly McKenzie, former player at the

and creator of ACF Fall * 2020: Alex Damisch, former player at

Lawrence University Lawrence University is a Private college, private liberal arts college and Music school, conservatory of music in Appleton, Wisconsin, United States. Founded in 1847, its first classes were held on November 12, 1849. Lawrence was the second colle ...

; and Mike Sorice, former player at the University of Illinois * 2021: Matt Bollinger, former player at the

and current player at the Georgia Institute of Technology; and Jim Dendy, former player and coach at the Georgia Institute of Technology * 2022: Matt Jackson, former player at

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

and current player at the University of Chicago; and Chris Borglum, coach at Valencia College * 2023: Dr. Edmund Dickinson, former player at the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

; and Joe Su, former player at

McGill University McGill University (French: Université McGill) is an English-language public research university in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill University, Vol. I. For the Advancement of Learning, ...

* 2024: Dr. John Lawrence, former player at Yale University and the University of Chicago; Raj Bahn, former player at Broward College and Washington University in St. Louis; and David Hamilton, former player at the University of Maryland * 2025: Jordan Brownstein, former player at the University of Maryland; Kyle Haddad-Fonda, former player at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

and the University of Oxford; and Selene Koo, former player at the University of Chicago

References

{{reflist

External links

Official website
Student quiz competitions 1991 establishments in the United States Recurring events established in 1991