# Partnership for Academic Competition Excellence

The Partnership for Academic Competition Excellence (PACE) is a United States–based 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that promotes high school quiz bowl and runs the National Scholastic Championship (NSC), an end-of-year national tournament for high school quiz bowl teams. PACE was founded in 1996 by a group of quiz bowl players and coaches who were dissatisfied with the quality of high school quiz bowl at the time. The NSC has been run in the June of every year since 1998. Beyond running the NSC, PACE offers advice and staff assistance to high schools and colleges who run high school quiz bowl tournaments. PACE does not currently supply questions for regular season tournaments or offer a collegiate competition program, unlike NAQT or Questions Unlimited.
In addition to running a national tournament, PACE awards the Benjamin Cooper Academic Ambassador Award each year at the opening ceremony of the NSC. The award is chosen by PACE members to honor "a high school academic competition team member, advisor, or organization whose character best promotes the spirit and honor of quiz bowl competition". It is named for Ben Cooper, who, as the captain of the It's Academic quiz bowl team at Georgetown Day School, worked with the PACE founders to provide a player's perspective on the plans for the inaugural NSC. Ben Cooper died in an automobile accident just before the start of his senior year. In 2004, PACE expanded its recognition program to include a "Young Ambassador" Award to recognize individuals or recent alumni from high school or college quiz bowl programs for "valuable and significant contributions to the high school academic competition community".

## National Scholastic Championship

PACE runs the National Scholastic Championship, a tournament for high school quiz bowl teams. Teams that attend the PACE NSC are mainly from schools in the United States, with teams from Canada and Singapore having also attended. Teams qualify by placing well at a PACE-certified tournament. There are three levels of qualifier events, with higher levels allowing more teams to qualify from that event. A number of teams can also qualify via a wild card bid. There is no limit to the number of teams from a single school that can qualify or attend. In order to qualify multiple teams from one school, multiple teams must concurrently qualify at the same tournament.
On March 18, 2020, PACE announced that the 2020 NSC would be cancelled due to the 2019-20 coronavirus pandemic.

### Format

The tournament takes place over two days during the weekend. On Saturday, teams are grouped into pools for preliminary rounds and play a round robin within that group, then are regrouped for playoff rounds based on their win–loss record in their preliminary group. On Sunday, teams are again regrouped into "superplayoff" brackets. Usually, a final will be played between the top two teams, though specific circumstances can make a final match unnecessary. Following the final rounds, an All-Star game featuring the top individual scorers is played and the closing ceremony is held.
Each round consists of two halves of ten tossups and ten bonuses. Tossups are worth 10 points for a correct answer, though 20 points may be awarded if they are answered early. Teams are not penalized for incorrect answers. Bouncebacks were allowed for bonuses until 2023. In the event of a tie, a sudden death tossup is read.
From 1998 to 2009, the NSC used a slightly different gameplay format that was distinct from most other quiz bowl tournaments. The old format had three rounds with varying gameplay, the Related Tossup-Bonus round, the Category Quiz round, and the Stretch round.

### NSC results and Cooper award recipients

| Year | Location | Field size | Champion | Runner-up | Cooper Award | Young Ambassador Award |
| 1998 | Case Western Reserve University | 29 | State College Area High School | Henry Ford II High School | Sue Ikenberry, coach at Georgetown Day School in Washington, DC, on behalf of Ben Cooper | — |
| 1999 | University of Pennsylvania | 22 | State College Area High School (2) | Rockville High School | Joe Hermiller, coach at E.L. Bowsher High School | — |
| 2000 | Furman University | 16 | State College Area High School (3) | Eisenhower High School | Rick Barry, James Garrick, and Hodges Lewis, operators of Academic Competition Enterprises | — |
| 2001 | Bowling Green State University | 22 | State College Area High School (4) | Georgetown Day School | Robert C. Grierson, editor of Scholastic Visions, the newsletter of the Illinois High School Scholastic Bowl Coaches Association | — |
| 2002 | The George Washington University | 40 | Richard Montgomery High School | Detroit Catholic Central High School | Douglas Tyson, coach at Benjamin Banneker Academic High School, and Sue Altman, producer of It's Academic, on behalf of the entire It's Academic program | — |
| 2003 | Case Western Reserve University | 27 | Paul M. Dorman High School | Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology | Carolyn Hawkins, coach at Cookeville High School | — |
| 2004 | University of Maryland, College Park | 40 | Maggie L. Walker Governor's School for Government and International Studies | Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology | Paul Cain, coach at Ysleta High School | Matt Weiner, Virginia Commonwealth University and David Bykowski, formerly of Furman University and University of Michigan |
| 2005 | Valencia Community College | 31 | Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (1) | State College Area High School | Sue Korosa, coach at Copley High School | Thomas Egan, coach at Maine South High School, formerly of the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign |
| 2006 | North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics | 29 | Raleigh Charter High School | Richard Montgomery High School | Bob Weiser, coach at Solon High School and Dr. John Barnes, coach at Maggie L. Walker Governor's School for Government and International Studies | Eric Grunden, coach at Raleigh Charter High School |
| 2007 | University of Michigan | 36 | Maggie L. Walker Governor's School for Government and International Studies (2) | Martin Luther King Magnet at Pearl High School | Julie Gittings, coach at State College Area High School | Evan Silberman, It's Academic co-captain at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology |
| 2008 | George Mason University | 48 | Walt Whitman High School | Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology | Matt Knupp of Russell High School (Award revoked on February 25, 2009) | Lee Henry, coach at Brindlee Mountain High School, and Chris Sewell |
| 2009 | George Mason University | 64 | Charter School of Wilmington | State College Area High School | Eric Huff, coach for Paul M. Dorman High School | Christian Carter, player from Minneapolis South High School and webmaster of quizbowlpackets.com |
| 2010 | George Mason University | 64 | State College Area High School (5) | Maggie L. Walker Governor's School for Government and International Studies | R. Robert Hentzel, President of National Academic Quiz Tournaments (NAQT) | Sarah Angelo, player and tournament director at Maggie L. Walker Governor's School for Government and International Studies |
| 2011 | Northwestern University | 60 | State College Area High School (6) | Hunter College High School | Matt Weiner, Virginia Commonwealth University | Charlie Dees, Jeffrey Hill, Paul Nelson, and Christine Whelehon, on behalf of the Missouri Quizbowl Alliance |
| 2012 | Washington University in St. Louis | 60 | Hunter College High School | Bellarmine College Preparatory | David Riley, coach of Loyola Academy and Linda Greene, coach of Auburn High School | Lily Chen, player from Hunter College High School |
| 2013 | University of Maryland, College Park | 72 | Ladue Horton Watkins High School | Liberal Arts and Science Academy | Chris Chiego of University of California, San Diego and Dwight Wynne of University of California, Irvine | Max Schindler, player from Ladue Horton Watkins High School |
| 2014 | Washington, D.C. | 96 | Liberal Arts and Science Academy (1) | Western Albemarle High School | Jeff Hoppes of NAQT | Matt Bollinger, player from the University of Virginia |
| 2015 | Washington D.C. | 96 | Detroit Catholic Central High School (1) | Liberal Arts and Science Academy | Joshua Rutsky, coach of Hoover High School | Nicholas Karas, player from the University of California, Berkeley |
| 2016 | Chicago, Illinois | 96 | Liberal Arts and Science Academy (2) | Adlai E. Stevenson High School | Sheryl and Michael Cvijanovich of Matt's Buzzers | Ankit Aggarwal, player from the University of California, Berkeley |
| 2017 | Chicago, Illinois | 96 | Detroit Catholic Central High School (2) | Westview High School | Fred Morlan, University of Kentucky | Jackie Wu, player from Downingtown High School East |
| 2018 | Washington, D.C. | 96 | Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (2) | Dublin Scioto High School | Chad Kubicek, National Academic Quiz Tournaments | Kady Hsu, player from Rancho Bernardo High School |
| 2019 | Washington, D.C. | 96 | Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (3) | James E. Taylor High School | Matt Albert, Justin Sharp, and Paul Villaluz, Las Vegas Quiz Bowl Alliance | Connor Mayers, player from Penn Manor High School |
| 2020 | Cancelled due to COVID-19 pandemic. | N/A | N/A | N/A | Chris Johnson, coach at Itawamba Agricultural High School | Ashish Kumbhardare, player from the Pennsylvania State University |
| 2021 | Virtual | 80 | Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (4) | Hunter College High School | Ben Herman, Greater Pennsylvania QuizBowl | Em Gunter, player from Salem High School |
| 2022 | Chicago, Illinois | 72 | Lambert High School | Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology | Kristin Strey, Scholastic Community Outreach Program | Kevin Kodama, player from the University of Washington |
| 2023 | Chicago, Illinois | 72 | Barrington High School (1) | Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology | Jay Winter, Iowa Quiz Bowl League and coach at Waukee Northwest High School | Joy An, player from Choate Rosemary Hall |
| 2024 | Reston, Virginia | 72 | Barrington High School (2) | Richard Montgomery High School | Tracey Hickman, Oklahoma Quiz Bowl Camp | Ben Weiner, player from University of Minnesota |

#### Notes

* ↑ Southside High School was initially the runner-up, but, after evidence of cheating by one of their players was uncovered, their place was forfeited.

## Other ventures

In March 2009, PACE organized the second annual "The Weekend of Quizbowl", a regular season invitational tournament at George Mason University that drew teams from across the United States. Part of the tournament ran on a custom question packets set that was also sold to other invitational tournaments. PACE did not run the tournament the following year. In 2014, PACE created an outreach fund to give monetary grants of up to US$200 to high school quiz bowl teams.