Alabama Scholastic Competition Association
The Alabama Scholastic Competition Association is the organization that organizes quizbowl in Alabama. They organize elementary, middle, and high school events. They host the ASCA High School State Championship, the ASCA Junior Varsity State Championship, the ASCA Middle School State Championship, and the ASCA Elementary Open. Since 2022, Christopher Arthur has been the president of the association.
ASCA was founded in 1989 as a response to the discontinuation of the state Scholars' Bowl tournament hosted by the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 1988. ASCA sent teams to the PAC until that tournament's end in 2009. In 2011 and 2012, they switched to NAQT set questions. In 1991, ASCA began sponsoring middle school tournaments. At the middle school level, ASCA hosts district tournaments, usually on the fourth Saturday in January. The winner from each district tournament pool plus a small number of wildcard teams selected based on points then compete at the Middle School State Tournament. Top teams from both district tournaments and the state tournament can qualify for the MSNCT.
Since 2023, high schools have been split into three divisions: Division I, consisting of all Alabama High School Athletic Association 7A schools; Division II, consisting of public Class 5A and 6A schools; and Division III consisting only of public Class 1A through 4A schools. Private, magnet, and selective schools are placed into either Division I or Division II based on a competitive balance formula that takes their performance over the past two competition years into account.
Since 2024, middle schools have been split into two divisions with schools that feed into Class 6A or 7A high schools placed into Division I, and all others placed in Division II. The same competitive balance formula is applied to private, magnet, and selective middle schools for classification into one of the two divisions.