Coachean Debate Dictionary, Installment 4

Schedule: 1. Clearly outlined times for all rounds, meals, housing, awards, etc., at a tournament. Usually fictional.

Novice debater: 1. Student in first year of debate. 2. Student in second, third or fourth year of debate, whose coach doesn't understand the meaning of "first year of debate."

Junior varsity debater: 1. Student in second year of debate. 2. Student in third year of debate that should have joined the chess club.

Varsity debater: 1. Disreputable gangsta with research (policy). 2. Junior varsity policy debater (LD). 3. Mean-spirited high school senior with exceptionally poisonous sneer (PF).

Flow: 1. Notes taken during a round, often but not always reflecting what was said by one or the other of the teams debating.

Disclosure: 1. Learning the decision after the round directly from the judge. (NOTE: Judges who disclose before the round has ended, while being honest, are not necessarily being tactful, and should be warned to wait until a more suitable moment.)

Pre-registration: 1. Entry of names, usually fictitious, at the first possible moment, to insure more slots at a tournament than a school needs. Usually performed online, often by students masquerading as coaches, and occasionally by coaches masquerading as coaches.

Hired judge: 1. Hungover college student, at either graduate or undergraduate level.

School lavatory: 1. Mildly noxious bathroom facilities located throughout the building (day one of tournament). 2. Seriously noxious bathroom facilities located throughout the building (day two of tournament). 3. If there's a day three of tournament, hold it till you get home.

Regional debate: 1. Second rate debate, when referring to regions other than one's own. 2. Top-rate debate being consistently ignored by the TOC committee, when referring to one's own region.

TOC committee: 1. Satanic cabal, possibly non-human, working out of an undisclosed location somewhere in the state of Kentucky.

NFL points: 1. Measurement of how often a debate coach goes online to register that the members of his or her team actually showed up somewhere in a forensic capacity. 2. Mathematical paradox where debaters who lose get more points than IEers who win. 3. What you get for your hundred bucks a year.

Schematic: 1. List of who's debating whom, where, and with which judge. Usually posted online or distributed throughout a tournament hot off the printer. (NOTE: It is generally believed by debate judges that reading a schematic will cause scabies, dengue fever or the yaws, and therefore it is preferable to stand in front of the ballot table trying to find your name in the pile of ballots. Since the number of debate judges who can find their names in a pile of ballots, even when that pile is sorted alphabetically, is woefully small, this usually slows down a tournament by about half an hour per round.)