Tippecanoe Academic Challenge, November 8th

[jrbellas]

Dear Coaches:

We are extremely proud to announce the 13th annual Tippecanoe Academic Challenge will be held on NOVEMBER 8TH, 2008 at Tippecanoe HS in Tipp City, Ohio. This tournament regularly features some of the best academic quiz teams from across Ohio, and provides a great opportunity to compete in an event early in the academic competition schedule. Plus, we have some really good, NAQT-experienced readers from the midwest!
The tournament will be held according to standard NAQT format, with 10 point tossup questions followed by 30 point bonus questions. Important note: the matches will NOT be timed, but we will be reading 10 tossups in each half round, 20 for a complete match. Bonuses will NOT rebound if not answered by the winning tossup team. If you are unfamiliar with NAQT format, please point your web browser to http://www.naqt.com/rules.html. We are using tournament set IS 77. We only have Ohio exclusivity for this set. Please note this if you are an out of state team, your participation in this tournament will prevent you from playing in other tournaments in your own area using this same set of questions.

Registration will be begin at 8 am on Saturday morning, and rounds will commence promptly at 9 am. If any teams arrive later, then they will forfeit matches until they arrive. Teams will be placed into groups of 8, where they will play everyone in their group in a round-robin. All schools are guaranteed seven matches. Schools will be placed into groups based on a combination of geographic proximity, school size and past TAC performance. After round-robin play is finished, each of the group winners, plus up to four wildcard teams, will playoff against each other in a single elimination bracket to decide the champion. Teams will be seeded in the elimination rounds based on record, then average points scored per game. Plaques will be awarded for the champion and runner-up schools, and at least the top two schools will qualify for invitations to the NAQT national championship. Possibly more schools will qualify for invitations based on the size of the field.

Tournament fees will be $60 for the first team, and $50 for the second team. There will be no separate JV tournament. “B” teams will simply be separated and placed in different brackets from their “A” teams. Any check received after October 31st will incur a $15 late penalty. Registrations will not be accepted after October 31st. If a school brings a NAQT qualified reader, they will receive a $10 discount. All participating schools MUST bring one working buzzer system that accommodates at least eight players total. Pizza, chips and drinks will be sold in the cafeteria for lunch. Teams will be allowed to purchase whole pizzas or by the slice. Orders will also be taken in advance. We encourage everyone to use our lunch service, since it is convenient and there are few restaurants near the high school.

Make checks payable to Tippecanoe High School, and they may be sent to:

Joe Bellas
Academic Quiz Team Advisor
Tippecanoe High School
615 E. Kessler-Cowlesville Road
Tipp City, Ohio 45371

You may either send all registration information for the tournament (School name, team roster, coaches’ name, address, phone, email, fax, and fees owed) to the above address, or you may register by email to jrbellas_AT_tippcity(dot)k12(dot)oh(dot)us. Please respond as soon as possible, since we are capping tournament size at 32 teams (not schools). For schools not familiar where we are located, Tipp City is just north of Dayton, Ohio, and sits directly next to Interstate 75. A number of hotels are available in both Tipp and Troy for those teams staying overnight.

We hope that you all are able to attend our tournament in November. Good luck to all of your teams this academic year!

[jrbellas]

Field update:

Confirmed and registered - 23
Arcanum 2
Culver, IN 2
MVCTC 1
Fisher Catholic 1
Columbus Acad. 1
Simon Kenton, KY 1
Miami East 1
Kenton Ridge 2
Northmont 1
Turpin 1
Northwestern 2
Tecumseh 2
Walnut Hills 1
Thurgood Marshall 1
Troy 2
White Cloud 2

We will definitely cut off at 32. If there is any interest at all in West Virginia, Kentucky, Michigan, Indiana, or of course, Ohio, please contact me as soon as possible at jrbellas_AT_tippcity(dot)k12(dot)oh(dot)us. You may not get a chance to play on this set otherwise.