In which we debrief on the Land of Lakes

I refer to Lakeland on my web schedule as beyond category. Or something from a painting by Hieronymus Bosch. The 2017 edition followed the usual program.

For all practical purposes, Lakeland is the end of the season for debate. Stefan, the TD, has what we might call an open door policy. He has two divisions of MS, one in Parli and one in PF, plus two divisions each of Policy and LD, and three divisions of PF. He doesn’t mind having non-school entities (which we never see anymore anywhere else, but maybe that should realistically be phrased as I never see anywhere I run things, because, well, me). Kaz and I ran everything other than policy and maybe LD, and Brian M ran policy and maybe LD, but over time LD segued over to us. Which makes sense, as we tend to always do LD and PF as a package. Of course, running seven divisions is a bit of a job, although all of them were large enough to run of their own accord, except MS Parli, which was mostly just one school and we just did whatever they wanted and kept out of it. The key thing was judging. We were as tight as, well, there were often literally no extras, and more than once we threw the odd Lakewegian policy kid into a novice round and said they’d love it and get going.

So it was a continual scramble. Most people behaved themselves judgewise, but there were the usual questions about obligation and the like, and people with better things to do once their own kids were eliminated, the sort of thing I send endless emails about before a tournament to head ‘em off at the pass. At Lakeland I’m just a cog in the machine. But nothing really horrible happened. Aside from the one schmegeggie who went home without entering his ballot on Friday night, we did fine. Curiously, the middle school PF division, of the 4 PF divisions, ran the smoothest. The judges showed up on time, clicked the start button, judged the rounds and entered decisions. The too-cool-to-start judges were mostly in policy and the PF varsity divisions. I harassed ours. Brian just assured himself that they were working and let them proceed on their merry way. My feeling is that until we have people trained to act like professionals, they will act like the adolescents that they are. Given our general success this season getting everyone on the same page, I do not feel it is impossible. I do, however, feel that it is impossible to run a tournament without knowing that it is, indeed, running, an issue that magnifies at the colleges. But, then again, those are my problem, and Lakeland isn’t. I have nothing to complain about; I got out around 6:00 on Saturday, leaving the last few rounds in Kaz’s more than capable hands, since she wasn’t going anywhere, as she had teams still in it all over the place. (It was a good weekend for Lex.)

My only remaining gig is the CFL qualifier the weekend after St. Patrick’s day. We’ve got this pretty well knocked, but it is different from everything else we do, and takes a lot of attention. And then it’s off to foreign climes and new levels of Bioshock and warm weather on the patio watching the butterflies flutter by. Ahhhhhh.

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