I’ve begun digging in on my presentation for the NDCA
conference. I’m covering tournament best practices, something I think I am
especially knowledgeable about. (You may think otherwise, you tattie howker, but who asked you?) Some of what I’ll be saying is simply my
opinion, but most of it is certifiably the right thing to do. I’m even putting
the presentation into PowerPoint, so you know I mean business. In conjunction
with the presentation I’m also intending to finish up a whole bunch of
documents for the Tournament Director’s Toolkit on the NDCA website. A lot of
people think they know better, and often when I’ve sent someone a how-to doc
they’ve ignored it. Tsk-tsk. They were always wrong to do so, and paid the
price, and I got to chortle to myself in a celebration of my wisdom. Of course,
it’s not really my wisdom. It’s my experience drawing on other people’s wisdom.
Everybody does some really good things at their tournament that no one else
does. And there’s some dumb stuff that people do that should be avoided. The
wealth of accumulated knowledge should be shared. And of course I’ll put it all
here as it comes together. I wouldn’t want you not to share the joy.
Sheryl and the Paginator were up at the chez this weekend,
the latter following the Harrison RR. He’s looking to acquire useful things for
setting up housekeeping after he graduates, while Kaz is looking to find a home
for a lot of stuff still at her Newburgh digs, now that she’s a Massachusetts
resident. So they toddled up in that direction after our visit before she
headed off to her Carolina trip, so that he could carry off the odd cooking
pot. I gather that at the moment when it comes to household supplies he owns
exactly own carcinogen-clad frying pan that, he says, is peeling. The good news
is that he doesn’t cook, so it won’t kill him any time soon. On the other hand,
cold cuts for dinner? Really? The bind moggles.
According to Sheryl, a lot of people are traveling around
the next couple of weeks before TOC (if they’re unfortunate enough to be
going). Speaking of which, I just happened to need to check out something about
the entrants there, and discovered that they no longer hold the line at 70/72.
They’re well into the 90s in both PF and LD. I recall distinctly that the
tournament was originally designed to break to a neat “Sweet 16,” as JW used to
put it. Now it breaks to, well, a serious run-off round. Is this because so
many people are qual’d up, which would mean it’s time for some serious bid
housekeeping, or because they’ve gotten (even) greedier, looking at all that
at-large activity and translating it into entries. Of course, it used to be
that an at-large cost and arm and a leg even if you didn’t get in; they’ve
lowered the cost, but if they’re then letting everyone in, they’re ahead of the game.
I know. You thought TOC was for the love of the game. Let me
see. It’s run by a college, and the money goes to the college’s team, and college
debate requires lots of travel… Oh, yeah. They’re doing it because they love
high school debate and all it stands for. Right. And please visit me at
BrooklynBridgeForSaleCheap.com when you get a chance.
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