On the Nature of Lincoln-Douglas, Part 3

We’ve argued that there should be rules for LD, and that the rules should be set by the NFL. Curiously enough, until recently, even if you subscribed to these ideas, there wasn’t much you could do about it. Material explaining the rules of the activity, if any, were not disseminated by the folks at Rippin’ aside from the broadest outline. Whether this was from a lack of certitude, a sense of non-necessity or a failure of organization is unclear, but my guess is that the league, in providing what little guidance it did, felt that this guidance was clear and sufficient. Further, an initial orthodoxy reflective of the league’s notions of what the activity ought to be took hold at the start in actual competition and at the leading camps, so probably people felt that the ship was launched, it wasn’t leaking and it was headed for the correct ports of call. All was well in Wisconsin, and they went back to their day jobs, which for most of them is shoveling snow off their cars.

Without going into an analysis of “what’s wrong with LD,” it was certainly clear to everyone in the last few years that whatever the initial conception of LD was, the practice of LD had become something different. So the NFL got together an assortment of coaches and sat them down and charged them with clarifying the activity in writing. In effect, it asked them to write up the rules. In a way, waiting twenty-five years to getting around to formulating what LD was all about was rather clever, because the assembled minds could look at that quarter of a century of history and analyze what they liked and what they didn’t like, and cherry-pick the best material. At the same time, anyone who reads the resulting rules will feel that, while many things are clearly set out, many others are open enough to interpretation that the activity isn’t completely put into a straightjacket. (And, of course, there are some that argue that total rule control has its benefits too. In Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe mysteries, for instance, the detective—who weighs a quarter of a ton—has extremely strict rules of what he will and will not do. He will not be interrupted twice a day when he is tending to the orchids on the roof of his brownstone. He will not discuss business at meals, which are as sacred as teachers’ desks. He will not shake anyone’s hand. And he definitely will never, under any circumstances, leave the brownstone. Much of the fun of the series is watching how Stout gets around the rules he has set for his character without actually breaking them, or else how he breaks them and gets away with it. And I don’t intend this as a pure digression simply to illustrate a minor point. There are people who can eloquently explain how the movies of the thirties and forties, which were produced under a strict code of “decency,” were sexier than movies where everyone is naked as a jay bird. A marvelous rhyme in poetry fulfills a particular rule of that form and provides a special joy not inherent to non-rhyming poetry; if you think that rhymes in poetry are a silly, old-fashioned idea, go through your iPod and figure out how many songs in there with really great lyrics are the ones that don’t rhyme. It is a classic thought, even a truism, that some of the best artistic work done in almost any field is done best with rules, which the best artists use to their own advantage.)

The rules that the committee laid down for LD after much conferring and hobnobbing are in the NFL’s district manual. There are those that argue that, because these rules are in the district manual that they should only apply to district tournaments, but this is analogous to claiming that the rules of baseball should only apply to the world series, or the major leagues, or some other part of the whole. I don’t question the mild logic of this claim, but it’s pretty silly. If the rules only apply to district or NFL tournaments, then logically they don’t apply to any other contests, which means that there are literally no rules whatsoever except at NFL events, which is just goofy. Still, one wishes that there were some other place that the rules were posted as overall strictures so that those among us who are genetically inclined to argue about everything under the sun (which is, I estimate, roughly 93% of the debate universe) wouldn’t be able to pick them apart with this sort of argument. But, they are where they are.

Let’s take a look at them. (Finally!)