Tuesday, December 06, 2011

On the duality of the Ivy League tournament

My phone rings in the tab room. I answer it. “Hello?”

“Hi. I’m lost.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m not sure.”

“So what exactly do you think I can do for you?”

Part two.

The phone rings again. Same number. “Hello?”

“Hi. I’m in East Pyne. Where’s room 8?”

“That depends on where you are.”

“I’m in East Pyne.”

Part three.

The phone rings again. Same number.

I ignore it.




At a tournament like Princeton, in the debate divisions at least, there are actually two tournaments going on. One of these tournaments is populated by the usual suspects in the field and in the judging pool. The debaters go to their rounds and debate, and judges pick up their ballots and go to their rounds and adjudicate, and it’s just like every other tournament they go to. It could be Lexington or Bump or Jake or Glenbrooks or whatever. Everyone knows their role, and everyone performs according to the script. Things run pretty close to schedule, and a swell time is had by all.

And then there’s the other tournament, populated by debaters and judges who have crawled out from under their local forensic rocks who have never seen the sun before and don’t understand the concepts of light and heat. It is as if they have never attended a tournament before in their life, and that may not be far from the truth. I have known of schools with a debate team—they think—that only goes to one tournament a year, inevitably an Ivy Leaguer. That is the depth of their tournament commitment. These are the ones who can’t read a schedule (although to my understanding, debate tournaments aren’t the only things in the universe with a schedule, but I could be wrong about that). They can’t read a map. They don’t show up at general assemblies to hear announcements, and then when they don’t do what they’re supposed to do, which was clearly outlined in the announcements at the general assembly they didn’t attend, they complain to you that you’re not giving them the information they need. They are the first in line for the free food, if any, even if you’ve hidden the serving time in the footnotes of the schedule and hidden the location in the footnotes of the map, and only let it be known that there was any food by announcing it at the general assembly: some things they are good at. They can’t believe that you expect them to judge almost every round! The horror! (My comment to them when they make this complaint is that they don’t have to judge every round, but tell us which rounds you don’t want to judge so that we can also let your debaters have that round off too. They look at me strangely for a while until they figure out what I’m saying, and then they wander off.) They think that “I got here late” is an acceptable excuse for missing a round. (I didn’t get here late. I got up early and allowed plenty of time. You didn’t. This is my problem?)

That seems to be the thing about college tournaments, from an operational standpoint. The usual suspects go about their business admirably, and you spend the rest of your time explaining what a debate tournament is to the unusual suspects. Sometimes it’s sort of fun, because not all the unusual suspects are weasels (nor are all the usual suspects furry little kittens). But by the same token, if we’re trying to pair the next round with MJP, your standing there with a dumb question is, shall we say, ill-timed. Your coming into the tabroom at all is ill-conceived. For that matter, anyone’s coming into the tabroom is ill-conceived. Yes, the tabroom is quiet. We like it that way. It’s also ours. But there’s always tab leeches. The thing is, yes, you’re here to quietly grade papers, but then your phone rings and your team has vomited in the boys’ room or somesuch, and the rest of us are just trying to work on getting the tournament run. What is it about the sterling personalities of the tab staff that attracts people who want to hang out with them? It’s certainly not because we’re the cool kids (except maybe Abdul). I’ve met us. We raise boring to new heights. We think Sporcle is important. We generate more paper than the IRS. There has to be other places to hang out. There has to be cooler kids than us somewhere.

Anyhow, if you’re wondering, the Tiggers was a great tournament from my perspective. Phenomenally large PF field, solid LD and speech fields, great operational team amongst the Tigs—they couldn’t do much better. And I enjoyed watching the two simultaneous tournaments transpire around me. I don’t suggest that anything could change the duality. I just find it interesting. It is the curse of the college tournament.

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