Blow it out!

The MHL Blowout was a rather remarkable event in many ways. More than anything it was a reminder that debate can be fun and serious at the same time. Too often people forget that, and things are taken so seriously and so all-the-fun-wrung-out-of-it that you wonder if in fact we are negotiating the end of life on the planet as we know it rather than an extracurricular high school activity. Lighten up, in other words. Why so glum? It’s high school debate. It gets you out of the house and meeting new people, it gets you thinking new ideas and it allows you to get some nice credentials for your resume. Years from now you will remember all the fun and forget all of the glum, so I advise you to make sure that there’s enough of the former in it to make up for the presence of any of the latter.

At the blowout, each round began with all the opponents drawing a power. This might be something like having an extra speech, your opponent having no prep time, or your judge being able to interject during the speeches (“I’m not buying it!”). You might be able to get a varsity debater to handle one of your rebuttal speeches, or get a debater or coach to sit with you and coach you through the round. There were numerous variations on these themes, and as each person drew a power, JV announced it to the assembled multitudes to great moaning and/or glee, depending on the power. He quite enjoyed his role as maitre d’ of the event, adding his own level of glee if the power was particularly poisonous. After all the powers had been drawn, everyone went off to their rounds, and a splendid time was had by all. We had powers for all the divisions, although adjusted for whether it was LD, PF or Policy. You might be able to detect that, in addition to adding some humor to the proceedings, there was an underlying educational benefit. Shouldn’t you be able to run a case without any prep? Or without any flowing? Or at least try it once in your life? You might fail, but you’ll learn why.

At the end, we managed demo rounds of LD and Pffft with bona fide stars (for instance, the Panivore handily managed to defeat the hipster K, whatever the hell that is). Policy, which ran much longer, as always, ran longer still with addition of the powers, so we couldn’t do a demo there, but that was all right. At the end of the day we all assembled at roughly the same time to give out awards, including a set that each team had designed for its own novices. Being awarded “Most likely to forget your case” or “Most likely to wear skintight jeans” or whatever seems a fitting end to the day. Let’s face it. Some novices never win nuttin’. They should at least get an award for effort. The award for “Least likely to show up for practice” was given in absentia, of course.

The blowout with its silliness immediately became a must-do-again event. Maybe next year we’ll call it the MHL Blowout Classic II, and O’C will start giving service awards. He wandered off early to slice pizza or something, so I can’t say I saw much of him Saturday. The divisions were fairly small and Kaz and I were able to handle everything on one machine. And then, home by 7:00. A good day, on all counts.