Greetings from the Culmi Nation

As for the NY State conflict, as referred to in a comment, there is less there than meets the eye. I haven’t gone to NYSFL debate events for years, because change of that organization in ways that I favored proved impossible. I would imagine that this has become a matter of religion: either your religion is NYSFL or NYSDCA when it comes to debate, and as a coach you follow your own sense of which is the true faith. Supporting members of the one are in a fairly contained universe, as are supporting members of the other, with a small overlap of invitationals in the middle if you’re drawing the Venn diagram. So when it comes time to culminate, you do so in your own universe, perceiving the other universe as faulty. As any empiricist can tell you, one is bound by the limits of one’s own senses, which in this case tell you that, whichever path you take, it is the right and righteous path.

Which sums up a lot of this whole subject. Even with the tiny team of Sailors, I see great variation from student to student in what they are seeking from the activity. I wasn’t in this business for long when I tried to solicit from each student a debate goal for the year. Not surprisingly, those goals were all over the place, and some of them weren’t strictly speaking even competitive. This was when I was learning the truth behind the stated premise that it’s not all about the competition. I established a base level of team participation, e.g., you had to come to meetings pretty regularly, but after that, it was up to you. For instance, a lot of folks fall away between sophomore and junior year rather than pursue varsity success, which is a lot harder than early success. The latter requires a bit of natural “debate intelligence,” but the former requires debate intelligence plus a boatload of work. Some choose not to do that work. But I don’t want to lose these people. I try to angle them into judging novices, which they usually like to do. And they stick around a bit at meetings, so we get to hear their input on whatever we’re talking about. Similarly, some folks just aren’t the type for TOC/$ircuit debating, which doesn’t make them lesser debaters, only different debaters. Let me emphasize that however I may disparage a given tournament, I would never disparage the accomplishment of those who are competing at it. I am loath to make the value judgment that the winners of TOC are somehow better debaters than the winners of CatNats, for instance. I think they are different by default, because of the nature of the tournament, but better? That, my friend, becomes another question of the true faith, and you can’t argue faith because it is a leap beyond reason.

It might be axiomatic to my TOC series last month that we need to keep people on the right track for them. TOC is a perfectly good track for this group. Pointing toward a state event is a perfectly good track for that group. Pointing toward CatNats or NatNats is a perfectly good track for other groups. My opinions of these events is neither here nor there insofar as often they are simply expressions of my debate religion beliefs. If it were me, in other words… So I guess I’m saying that the best thing anyone can do as a coach is not try to create a one-size-fits-all approach to the activity, because it would be a mistake to believe that one size fits all. It doesn’t. Each debater is unique. Tournaments change over time. Styles change. Enabling individuals to succeed in the way that is best for them ought to be a basic enough educational goal.

So don’t confuse my ideas and thoughts and ramblings with my actions, which speak for themselves. I write this blog, to some extent, to provoke thought and discussion. Often I write something today that I learn tomorrow is totally wrong, and I love when that happens.

(Then again, the real reason I write this blog is because they told me it would make me rich. You just can’t trust…them!)