The North Carolina Central University (NCCU) Honda All-Star Challenge (HCASC) team has qualified to participate in the 36th Annual Honda Campus All-Star Challenge National Championship Tournament. The tournament will take place in Torrance, California, on April 12-16, 2025.
Founded in 1989, the Honda Campus All-Star Challenge is the oldest academic competition among students at America’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). Honda has continuously sponsored the program since its inception. The fast-paced buzzer competition highlights students’ academic prowess and ability to answer questions about history, science, literature, religion, the arts and pop culture. The challenge is open to all four-year, degree-granting HBCUs in the continental U.S. More than 125,000 students have participated in the competition, where schools vie to qualify for the annual National Championship Tournament. The national champion is awarded a $100,000 institutional grant. NCCU’s team has qualified for 32 previous tournaments.
NCCU participated in the Virginia State University National Qualifying Tournament (NQT) on February 22, 2025. The tournament was switched to a virtual format due to the unexpected record snowfall in the Petersburg area. The varsity team completed round-robin play with a 3-1 record to advance to the finals where the Eagles lost a nail-biter to Hampton University, 630 – 570. However, the second-place finish earned the team a berth in the national championship tournament.
Representing NCCU at the recent qualifying tournament were varsity captain Iman Shakur, a junior biomedical sciences major from Columbia, SC; Ronni Butts, a sophomore political science major from Charlotte; Makala Evans, a senior information technology and business major from Durham; and Terrell Parker, a senior mechanical engineering major from Cary.
The four varsity members are challenged in practice by their other teammates, numbering thirteen students who represent eight majors, twelve different NC cities, and three states. At the NQT, four of those thirteen students, namely Isiah Baptist, Chantel Chestnutt, Genayah King, and Erin Stitt, competed as an auxiliary team that finished 3-1 in another division of the tournament.
Clayton C. Mack, Jr. coaches the team, with assistance from faculty advisor Janice S. Dargan, Ph.D., and assistant coach Teah R. Smith.
For more information on the Honda Campus All-Star Challenge, please visit https://www.hcasc.com. Follow the team on Instagram @NccuHCASC.