In which we debrief on the Scarswegian event

And then there was Scarsdale. Last year there wasn’t Scarsdale, because of the storm of the century, or something closely resembling it. There’s nothing worse than cancelling a tournament, after all the preparation and fretting and whatnot. This year, it only snowed twice the week of the tournament, with a prediction of the next storm of the century for the following Sunday, so they managed to squeeze it in. Just.

JV was very particular about warning us not to arrive at a certain time, or we’d be inexorably stuck in pre-dismissal traffic. Hence it warmed my heart as I walked toward the door and saw Matt Dunay in his car, inexorably stuck in pre-dismissal traffic, loudly bemoaning his (predicted) plight. It’s the kind of sight that just starts a tournament off on the right note.

Unfortunately, the wrong note soon followed. After JV had diligently organized 1000 slots of wifi coverage, we had barely gotten halfway through registration when the wifi went all dicky on us. (That’s a Britishism; I haven’t gotten vulgar all of a sudden.) So much for e-ballots, which we tossed about halfway through round 1 after having suffered more than enough complaints about unconnectability, including our own. This of course has been my plaint since day one, that e-ballots are only as good as the delivery system, and an awful lot of schools have delivery systems somewhere between death eating a fig newton to Attica in lockdown. Where we usually have impeccable delivery systems, at colleges, I remain afraid that e-balloting will allow judges who are hard to find already turn completely invisible. Oh, well.

After a momentary panic about points not showing up on ballots thanks to a rogue rules set, the tournament itself went fine, if fine includes the usual inept judges who go out of their way to make their ballots incomprehensible the instant before they disappear for the next twelve hours. (And they’re always from the same schools, although I have to admit that lately, some of our worst offenders are cleaning up their act just in time to make room for new worst offenders.) One very interesting item to come up was the distinction between strikes and conflicts, and we’ll talk about that here in detail at a not too much later date.

If the hero of the Gem of Harlem was Some Columbia Kid, the hero of at Scarswegia (or as JV calls it, the Scarvite) was a kid we’re calling Curly. The first we saw him was when he was given some random running assignment and didn't have a clue what we were talking about. When asked, Charlie B, who was at the ballot table, claimed to have never seen him before in her life. Subsequently throughout the tournament I couldn’t swing a cat without hititing old Curly, who mostly seemed to spend his time at the various help desks in the cavernous building, jollying up the Scarswegian students of the female persuasion. By the time elims came out, he was chairing panels in the novice rounds. It was around this point that Curly was voted the tournament MVP by the Associated Press. The last time I saw him, he was proudly announcing that he was going to Disney World.

And thus another debate legend is born.