In which we begin to talk about NDCA

This last weekend was my first NDCA as a board member. The event remains dominated by policy, and for many circuit coaches it serves as their culminating event. There’s apparently no love lost between some folks and the TOC, but to be honest, I really don’t know much about the genesis of NDCA so I can’t go into any real detail. But I like the idea of an organization for coaches, first and foremost. And I like the idea of a traveling tournament. This year it was in Ogden, Utah, a gorgeous spot north of Salt Lake City surrounded by snowcapped mountains. The venue was Weber State College, which was a phenomenal host, which hosted NDA not long ago, proving their ability to put on a good show. The next couple of NDCA Championships are, first, Las Vegas, and then Orlando. I can’t get too wildly excited about the Orlando one, though. The tournament is around Easter break every year, which means wall-to-wall people at WDW, not really worth the battle. But then again, there’s enough fun venues of the non-Disney persuasion to keep things interesting.

I flew out early on Friday because I wanted to participate in the opening night reception. Good flight out into sunny, warm weather, looking out the window at those forbidding mountains and thinking when you reach SLC that, yep, if I were Brigham Young, I would have stopped here too. Found Ogden and the hotel easily enough, thanks to the aid of my trusty Google map GPS, found Kaz easily enough, thanks to the aid of my trusty text message service, and immediately headed out for a snack, knowing the evening was going to be something of a gastronomic bust. We found a nice place and secured a dinner reservation for the following night; we know a good thing when we see one.

There was a short board meeting at 6, at which we talked about this and that, nothing earth-shattering. I did get agreement to proceed with the website update. Then we headed off to the reception, which wasn’t very well attended—maybe the potential reception attendees, realizing what state the town was in, knew in advance that the Hawaiian Punch really was just Hawaiian Punch—but following that was an 8:00 panel discussion that drew a full house. The agenda subjects were women in debate, privilege and inclusion and the student advocate, and communications, but mostly we talked about inclusion and race. I have to admit that I was in some back pain and a bit zonked by the time change and the long day, so I contributed virtually nothing to the discussion. But I enjoyed hearing it. These are subjects about which there is a lot of controversy, not necessarily about people being excluded, but how to deal with it, and what is and isn’t appropriate for the high school community. Listening and exchanging opinions in person can be a lot more effective than sending emails, in which the tone and sense aren’t always clear. Also, in emails, it’s awfully easy to move away from one topic to another and lose some important areas off to the side. That’s one reason why I want to do broadcasting, where live interaction can take the place of written communication. Written is good, but finding the right medium for a subject at hand is important, if you want to get beyond just opining.

After the panel I had a short talk with J Alston about MJP (which I’ll explain eventually in some update notes about the subject as a whole), and then went off to bed to try to regain myself for the rest of the weekend.