In which we discuss Big Bronx

I spent some time talking to Kirby C yesterday, and I’ve talked a bit to Diane S over the last few weeks, all about the Bronx. I've also talked to their administration. These conversations will continue, I’m sure. The underlying purpose of these discussions is getting the school over a rough patch, and keeping them in the game in every way, shape and form. They are our largest local contingent in terms of competitors in every aspect of forensics. And they run one of the biggest tournaments in the country, going back to a time long before any of today’s students were even born. Their administration is dedicated to keeping things going, which is as it should be.

My first Big Bronx tournament was probably 1995. For a bunch of years I was in the LD judging pool, sitting around that auditorium on those hard wooden seats, hoping that nobody would notice me when they were pushing yet another ballot. And if a ballot actually had your name on it, Levinson would find you no matter how low you sank in that seat. This was my first introduction to circuit debate, and I didn’t have to drive very far to see it. Sodikow, of course, ran things in true monarchial style. His legendary speeches and announcements always seemed to come from the heart (or, if they were, shall we say, bilious, from the liver); when he told people to close that door, he wasn’t doing it to be cute, he was doing it to get the damned door closed (although he was well conscious of the cuteness of the thing). When he would call for attention, and not get it from a small contingent near the back of the room, he would call on someone to find out what language they were speaking so that he could yell at them on their own terms. He always broke me up. He also announced, formidably (hell, he announced everything formidably), that he ran his tournament (his tournament) for itself, and not as an entrance to someone else’s tournament. My favorite thing of all was arriving Sunday morning for the first break round of that day. Soddie would be sitting at a small desk with all the ballots piled up in front of him to personally hand them to the judges and, more importantly, to personally note which judges didn’t show up. Did any judges dare not show up, knowing that they would inevitably have to face the wrath of Sodikow? That’s pretty hard to imagine.

Kirby and Robert carried on the tournament traditions after Soddie retired. I was still sitting on those wooden seats back then. The tournament lost a little of its national luster after Soddie was gone, probably because it was so intertwined with his personality. I mean, I was going to lots of circuit tournaments at this point, and most of them were interchangeable, and the only time any personality leaked out of them was when the tournament director showed up to announce the trophy winners. Otherwise you couldn’t tell Chicago from Boston from anywhere else, unlike the Bronx, where Soddie was it. And I think this was a bum rap on his successors, because after he was gone, the tournament was the same as when he was there, except without him. I think there were politics at play here that I still don’t understand, as Bronx started losing its TOC bids. I mean, this was when I was on the advisory committee. I was there for the discussions, and I just didn’t get it. Whatever happened wasn’t happening up front. Or maybe it was just happening under no one’s control, for no particular reason other than that change is inevitable. In any case, it had nothing to do with Kirby and Robert that I could see. And when Kirby and Robert left, the Bronx tournament lost its last connection to circuitry. It should not have happened.

This was when I moved into the tab room. I didn’t want to see this tournament disappear, whether it was an octos bid or a local jamboree—I didn’t care—and I worked with Joe G for a few years trying to hold things together. It wasn’t easy. I don’t think Joe’s heart was ever really into the idea of being a tournament director or a forensics director, which may be an indication of some inherent wisdom on his part. The first year he had, literally, over a hundred runners. I made him send the lion’s share of them home. It’s hard enough to run a tournament without also having to manage a running of the (novice) bulls. There were runners everywhere, with hardly any of them having a clue of what they should do. Hell, I didn’t have a clue to what they should do. Leaving seemed the best bet.

These were the Wilderness Years, and we somehow held things together. I don’t think we had any bids anymore, but then again, Soddie never ran his tournament as an entry to someone else’s tournament. We did what we could. When Cruz came on board, he rebuilt the tournament step by step, and did a good job of it. Before his Bronx career ended, he had brought Big Bronx back to being the tournament it was under its creator. This was no mean feat, as they say, and it can’t be taken away from him.

Now we are engaged in seeing what will happen to Big Bronx next. All the mechanisms are in place to have another great tournament. Most of the experienced hands are already committed to come back and keep things going, from tab to alums, including Kirby and the school administration. I’ve reached out to some coaches here and there and gotten their support. My chief worry is that once again some unseen force of politics will conspire to punish the tournament, and the school, not because of anything Cruz did—that wouldn’t make any sense—but for their own private purposes. The TOC committee meets in a couple of weeks. They can strip away bids and move them closer to home, or they can wait and see whether the Bronx can maintain a national caliber tournament in New York City. It is, after all, called the New York City Invitational. Otherwise, we might have to go through this whole thing again, where eventually a new director is hired, and they have to rebuild from scratch. Whoever that person is, that person will no doubt be successful, because the raw material of Bronx Science, the alums and the students and the administration, is so strong. But don’t those alums and students and administration deserve better, a continuation rather a punishment?