And so we set sail on a new year (I think)

So, here we go again. I mark the moderators’ meeting of the NYCFL, which took place on Saturday, as the literal beginning of the season. Which means that, officially, 2007-8 is off and running.

As (I think) I’ve mentioned before, we are looking at a strange year calendar-wise. Thanksgiving is (I think) as early as it can get, MLK is (I think) as late as it can get, and Easter is (I think) as early as it can get. I throw in a lot of (I think)s because I’m not precisely sure, but if Thanksgiving were any earlier it would be on Labor Day, if MLK were any later it would be on the 4th of July, and any change on Easter would put it up against Rosh Hashanah, and I don’t think we want that to happen. As a result, the calendar is filled with this-year-only events and asterisks, which we only began to scratch the surface of at the CFL meeting. For one thing, it looks like we can squeeze in two or three extra MHLs. We created a debate-only CFL in January (between MBA and Big Lex). After polishing up my online team schedule I discovered that Ridge may have moved to the same weekend as Emory/Columbia, which is not good, so I hope they’ll move back to one of the December weekends, especially since there seems to be a surfeit of available December weekends. We’ll try to do our State Regionals in conjunction with Lakeland, and we’ll urge Stefan to offer what he did last year (although we may need to think about novice LD vs an MHL in conjunction with the Regionals if the thought is that people at that point of the year are trawling for States bids). One of my responsibilities at the day job is scheduling my department; I seem to be taking on at least some advisory responsibility for that at the night job. Then again, maybe it just goes with NFL Chair, since not much else does.

Speaking of MHLs (were we speaking of MHLs?), we’ll offer a full menu at Byram Hills, and not just a first-timer set, although the novice divisions will be limited only to f-t’s. Meanwhile, the States folks are offering JV PF this year, for freshmen and sophomores only; it makes sense to add this to the MHL menu, and so we shall. Maybe now we’ll drum up some business from States qual hunters, especially since, like Congress, one of these quals and you’re in. We’ll see. When we first offered PF in open divisions, people stayed away in huge numbers. I’d hate to see them do it again.

Tomorrow night is the Sailors’ first voyage. The plebes will, I trust, be there in force. Last year the first night crowd was in the thousands, but I managed to shoo most of them away. Still, we ended up with a goodly number. I hope we can do the same this year. The returning Tars have promised to campaign in the honors classes to drum up some new business. If that doesn’t do the job, nothing will. Although as I always maintain, people show up at the school already wanting to debate, for reasons that escape me completely. Maybe it’s genetic. Then again, the evolutionary value—if any—of a debate gene is highly, uh, debatable.