Lincoln University has yet another success to add to its belt since its academic team won its round-robin regional tournament at Hampton University, Virginia, this weekend.
The team of Anwaar Morales, Maher Akremi, William Frawley and Ali Swanson are semi-finalists for the Honda Campus All-Star Challenge and will learn next week if they have won a seat at the national tournament in April in Los Angeles, California.
Both junior political science majors, Morales and Akremi were on last year's team, which did well at the regionals held in Virginia but not good enough to advance.
Committing to the academic teams' practice schedule is more than for the single tournament experience. Members enjoy the everyday challenge to their trivia knowledge and working with like-minded people.
Members tend to be intelligent, busy, high achievers, Akremi said.
"That makes scheduling practices extremely difficult," the team captain said.
Each member of the team brings his own experience and knowledge expertise and they all have picked up random trivia and popular culture facts along the way.
"We have a diverse range of knowledge," Morales said.
Interestingly, one's major might not reflect their best categories, Akremi added.
Morales knows U.S. presidents, television, general political science and classic black literature. Akremi knows word origins, the U.S. Constitution and languages.
If the Lincoln team has a weakness, they agree it would be sports.
Sophomore Frawley, a pre-engineering and math major, and Freshman Swanson, a music education major, round out the team, which is allowed only three people competing in each round. Alternate member Cameron Forrest, a freshman creative writing major, did not travel with the team.
"Grade doesn't matter, either," Morales said. "Experience is the most important part."
Veterans Morales and Akremi agreed the first time one walks into the real tournament it's an unknown and something their younger players had to adapt to this weekend.
But every round is somewhat of an unknown, since players don't know in advance what their questions or categories might be.
"It's hard to tell what they will be about or who is going to know the answers," Morales said.
That can be frustrating if the teammate who has the answer is the one sitting beside Coach Don Govang at the time.
The game set up "looks a lot like Family Feud, except it's intellectual," Govang said.
The Lincoln team faced four other Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in their round-robin Saturday. There were three question and answer rounds with some answers resulting in "bonus" question, where the team is allowed to confer before answering.
The final round is called the "Ultimate Challenge Round" by the tournament hosts, but the Lincoln team fondly calls it the "Super Sexy Speed Round."
They choose a topic and then have 60 seconds to answer 10 related questions. It's high-energy, but they seem to feed off each other.
"The key is to pick something you know about," Morales said.
One of their most successful themes was "Will Smith movies," they said.
The team is grateful the university has supported their travel requirements to participate.
"It's nice not to have to sell brownies," Akremi said.
Govang, who is in his 11th year as coach, said academic teams are co-curricular, so they come alongside their academic pursuits nicely.
"They have a very impressive combined GPA," he said.
Although the team is not well-known across campus, Morales noted most of the team members are Supplemental Instruction leaders or campus tutors.
Because most of the members tend to be introverts, they're okay with being under the radar and not having a rooting section.
"You can only get so excited about Jeopardy!" Frawley admitted.
But, it is nice to be appreciated and recognized, Morales added.
"This is fun, it really is," Akremi said. "The competition can be stressful; but it's fun to know things, to find out what you know."
On the web: www.hcasc.com