Updating my tournament schedule has been way more
time-consuming than I expected. First of all, I had to desailorize it, and I
kept missing stuff. Then I had to decide whether to include the unlikelies,
like any MHLs. Then there was the random links listing in the left-hand column.
Again, the MHL loomed large.
Whither the MHL?
It’s a great story. The Mid-Hudson League was established
back in the dark ages by, among others, Malcolm Bump. Sodikow was either there
at the start or close thereto. I’m fuzzy on the participation of some of the
other early folks but there were a few others. The point of the organization
was to provide a training league, a place where first- and second-years could
debate one another and learn and grow. That’s a perennial issue, rounds for
newbies. Nowadays we seem to have plenty of novice LD opportunities at
invitationals, but novice PF is rare, although the rationale for offering it is
exactly the same as LD. JV has virtually disappeared from invitationals, aside
from Yale and those valiant few persisting with Academy. (Come to think of it,
Academy knocked Monticello’s numbers back up a bit, so maybe it will continue. Back
in the day, Monti had a full JV division in addition to it’s Varsity division.)
In any case, the idea of regular rounds for younger students remains a good
one. As the geographic center of the MHL shifted, it was renamed the
Metro-Hudson League, thus acknowledging, at least subtly, the active
participation of the Newark folks.
And then it got the vapors.
It wasn’t hard over the last few years to see that MHLs
weren’t pulling them in as they once had. And last year, we reached the point
of canceling most of them for lack of interest.
I have no idea what happened. Debate per se is bigger than
ever, it seems. Policy may not be robust, but PF more than makes up for it. And
we continue to have strong LD schools, albeit with a native circuit bent,
although, still, people have to start somewhere. I’ve heard various theories
about the falling off, but given that the league is virtually free, it can’t be
economic, and it can’t be the content of the rounds because it’s the same folks
that go to the invitationals, and it can’t be the travel time (although that’s
perhaps one of the best explanations) because around here people go to, say,
Texas at the drop of a hat, so going to the next county over can’t be that much
of a hardship. Granted, the NYC Debate league offers a full buffet of events
during the year that satisfies their needs, but they didn’t exist except for a few policy folks back in
the day so you can’t say that the focus has simply shifted from the suburbs to
the urbs. People just stopped coming. Go figure.
I probably haven’t made it specifically clear to too many
people that I intend to have nothing to do with organizing the MHL next year.
That’s another reason for wanting to retire: I just didn’t want to face the
frustration of trying to rebuild the organization, or find a different way to
satisfy what I see as a need for educational rounds. If I don’t do it, I don’t
know who will. The “board,” so to speak, was myself, Cruz, Kaz and Militza from
NJUDL. I don’t expect M to do it herself; Jersey is already full up with
NJUDLs. And Kaz is in Massachusetts and Cruz is gone and I’m bowing out.
Mother of mercy, is this the end of the MHL?
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