The first of the first-timer events is now under our proverbial belt. From the Plebe point of view, it was fine. Everybody picked up at least one round—remember, our team has no varsity LD and no team LD memory to pass down—and one of the three brought home a lovely almost new mug taken directly from the back of a closet somewhere in Regis and dusted off handsomely before being dished out to our young stalwart. The trophies as a whole were, to put it in the softest terms, a mélange. But as I’ve said a bazillion times, novice debate isn’t about winning trophies, it’s about winning over nerves and intestines. Everything else is just gravy.
People are truly falling into the process of handling their own teams and checking in so that we can start things in a timely manner. We went up to tab at 9:05, to pair 7 divisions. Following opening remarks, distribution of schematics, and judge instructions (which, as always, were ignored by the judges most likely to flout them egregiously, thinking that they know so much better when, in fact, the air in their heads would power the Goodyear blimp), all the ballots were picked up by 10:05. Nifty-galifty, to put it in Mr. Rogers terms. Getting in 4 rounds was a piece of layer cake.
Problems? Well, always a few. Untrained judges, but we had enough overage to shuttle them from the back of the room to JV’s training sessions. Sophomore judges, which are not allowed? You betcha! Unchaperoned teams? Well, one, yes, which is the ultimate no-no. Just because you are being paid to judge by the school does not make you an adult in an emergency. Oh, well. On the back end, we had normal sizes in all the divisions except VPF, which I paired as a small RR, with 3 double-flighted rounds and 2 single-flighted rounds in the same time slot, the sort of thing that makes my brains fall out just thinking about it, but somehow it worked. As for the rest, a few same-school rounds, unavoidable when someone is half the field, but we’re used to them by now, and always provide neutral judging, which at least elevates them beyond a mere practice session.
Awards (well, old junk from the Regis closet) started promptly at 6:30, right after I heard that the bus we were sharing with the Sailor Speecho-Americans was about to set sail from 5th Avenue and 16th Street to Park Avenue and 85th Street. We were out by 6:45, just in time to get picked up by our bus at 7:45. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the first time I heard from the bus after it launched was when they called to tell me that they had left Manhattan and headed over to Queens. This is an accomplishment. Not since the Bronx bus to Westchester (the suburb immediately adjacent to the Bronx) headed across the Hudson toward Pennsylvania has a bus gone so impossibly and inexplicably awry. Oh, well. What can you do? It’s debate, as in, “It’s Chinatown, Jake.” You just accept it and move on. The alternative is an aneurysm, and who needs that so early in the year?
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