I can’t quite make out what was going on at Glenbrooks over the weekend. O’C sent me a text that he was playing dodgeball with Matt Dunay and the People’s Champion. Sticking with the Disney theme established at the DiDeAD in August, their name was either the Mighty Duckers or the Mighty Schmucks. Hard to tell.
It’s interesting to follow a weekend like this previous one. First, there’s the $ircuit tournament in Chicago, which garners a lot of attention and grabs a lot of bandwidth for those who think debate is like baseball, with teams they root for and for which they paint their faces and don the tee shirt. Given that these events are relatively narrowly focused, attended by the tiniest fraction of schools in the activity, and the tiniest fraction of the teams thereof, it’s rather remarkable. I’ve talked about this in the past, and just sort of given up on it. I used to charge WTF with the blame for pumping this stuff up and deifying (or at least hagiologizing) certain people and glorifying the events they attend, or vice versa, but that’s much less true these days. Still, the idea that the entire debate universe, a) wants a TOC bid, or 2) cares about TOC bids, is a curious one, considering the reality that the vast majority of people in the debate universe have absolutely no truck with TOC whatsoever. It’s not even a goal for them, much less a meaningful goal. The only analogy I can come up with is Little Leaguers who spend their free time watching the Majors, except here, there’s no objective proof that the latter is any more “grown up”—it’s only different. Oh, well.
Also on this weekend was the Villiger tournament, which is primarily an event for Northeast speech teams who bring along their LDers. I don’t mean to disparage it: the list of breakers looks like almost any Northeast event on a given weekend, give or take the odd $ircuit stalker. It’s not an easy tournament by any means, but it always strikes me as a little old-fashioned. I mean, from my perspective they operate on their own radar; I can’t recall the slightest push to get my school to attend, either via JOT or tabroom,com or the US mail or whatever. I have to admit I’ve lost touch with them: the last time I was there, easily ten years ago or more, they only had four prelims and broke to a “Big 32,” whatever the hell that is. I would imagine they’ve moved away from that kind of thing. Anyhow, you probably couldn’t be much more different from Glenbrooks with a varsity tournament than with Villiger, yet it thrives. More power to them.
And, of course, there was Wee Sma Lex, a very local business (which, of course, I traveled to for hours—go figure) for novices and, primarily, second-years, which I’ve already discussed at length.
In other words, something for everybody, from a Northeast perspective. I like that. If the goal of the activity is providing an educational opportunity different from the classroom, the job is being done. So I would advise you to take your hands out of your pockets for a minute as we head into Thanksgiving and pat yourself on the back. You’re doing a good job in all sorts of ways, les chefs de debater offering a varied menu of events from the startlingly rich and expensive to the purest of comfort foods. Good work. Definitely good work.
How dodgeball fits into this, however, is beyond me.
3 comments:
Dodgeball is to the Glenbrooks as nuisance fees are to Bump: a creative way to raise money for charity.
My team (Bronx Science had several, one of which was a hybrid with the Sailors) was eliminated by Walt Whitman (WW also fielded multiple teams) in thirty seconds. Fortunately, Ari Parker avoided knocking me out with a head shot.
I should also note that Abhi's strategy was the most creative of the tournament. He used his wheelchair as a shield. Priceless and brilliant!
bro,
little league has a world series. they don't watch the majors, they go to a nationally televised game. and then there's hella other baseball leagues that travel and have playoffs n crap for high schoolers.
and there's similar style things for football, basketball, hockey and the like, either through high schools or extracurricular organizations.
I don't think its unusual or weird for the debate community to fetishize the TOC. it seems like a natural product of a certain sized circuit that has a tournament that's tough to get into, has "the best kid" from nearly every large regional circuit (i hear the midwest has some state-bound warriors), functions as the de facto national championship and BEST DEBATER OF YEAR awards, and is arguably the highest form of competitive LD available. it seems pretty natural for people to aspire towards that and thus as the object of desire turned into a method of advertising and a "hook" for kids. sounds exactly how the world works.
i would agree with the hon. menick in this regard: that's not the whole community, and that's certainly not a majority of the community. i wish everyone had the built-in opportunity to do the highest level of debate they were interested in, where ever they wanted. this is obviously impossible atm. leveling of the playing field should be the goal, i don't believe in cutting off some parts of the community. triage is what capitalists do.
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