Bump is afoot

In answer to the Tom Deal comment on student judges, I feel that you can adjust to a parent, even one who is not taking notes (and who was, therefore, not well trained, which, as I say, is not a good thing and indicates a coach who has failed or a parent who hasn’t listened). You go slow, and you walk them through it step by step. But how do you adjust to a student whose interpretation of the resolution—and debate—is unchangeable and perhaps totally absurd? That’s my brief against student judges, their belief in their infallibility, making the Pope look like a piker by comparison. Parent judges have no such belief; in fact most of them are totally cowed. Short of having a judge who can actually judge, I want a judge I can read and adapt to. Hence my preference for parents. Of course, most people disagree. That’s why I find it interesting to talk about it.

Anyhow, today is Bump, and if you’re reading this, you’re online and I’m kicking you out of the tournament. Unless you’re not at Bump, which means that you wish you were, which is somewhat akin to me being at Bump and wishing I weren’t. But I won’t belabor that.

So, seriously, what do I like about Bump? There must be something, right? Well, I talk a lot about tournaments and brands on TVFT and, I guess, here, so yes, I do see Bump as a Hen Hud team brand extension. So what should that be? It should be well run, for one thing. I mean, for God’s sake, I help run tournaments every week, so I ought to be able to make this one happen. I want it to be friendly because I want my team to be friendly with other teams. I have no control over this, but the camaraderie does seem to be there. Personally I like all the adults who come, but maybe that’s because the ones I don’t like send somebody else to chaperone. And of course we bring back lots of alums, which means that for the most part, you know what you’re getting in terms of judge paradigm. I love seeing all the graduates again, and that too is an extension of our raison d’etre, that it’s about the relationships among ourselves developing over those three or four years of traveling and arguing and eating and whatnot, and I think that spills over. We have very nice trophies (or at least very expensive ones) and we also have iCrappies, and if that’s not an extension of our existence, I don’t know what is. I’d work in a trivia contest if I could, but I haven’t figured out how yet. I give downright hilarious opening assembly and award ceremony speeches, but so quietly that no one ever gets to hear them. Boiling it down, then, what I like is that I think we run a pretty efficient yet friendly operation, where everybody knows everybody and has a good time, with reasonable rounds and edible food and a few laughs but with a serious underpinning of good competition. In other words, you have fun and you learn something, the perfect pair in the debate universe. There’s some other tournaments like this out there, and I enjoy them too. I enjoy all kinds of tournaments, frankly, because I can find fun in a lot of things. But most of all I want to feel welcome at the place. You can put up with a lot after that. A little Disney philosophy doesn’t hurt here. The people who come are our guests, and we treat them as such. So should you. After that, everything is gravy.