In which we see the light at the end of the tunnel, and it's coming from Philadelphia

There is something fun about the run up to a tournament, especially when it’s big and complicated.

Penn has pulled one of the great turnarounds over the years. Once upon a time there were early in the season, and they kept bumping up against this tournament or that tournament. Then they were all over the place. They just couldn’t get the traction a big tournament needs. Finally, under CP’s tutelage, they planted a flag in the ground on President’s Weekend. At the time, plenty of people weren’t terribly happy with their Ivy cousin to the east and were pleased to find an alternative. More importantly, the Quakers did indeed create themselves as a meaningful alternative. A big push in PF, with a RR, helped make the difference. The thing is, there’s a lot of people who want to debate on this weekend. Berkeley’s got a million or so. Harvard’s got its couple of million. And Penn isn’t far behind. Back when, a bunch of us committed to Penn on the new date, and we held on through a lean year or two. But the investment paid off. It’s nice to see when things work out well for everyone. Penn didn’t steal anybody else’s entries: they just created a site where even more entries could thrive. All’s well that ends well.

Meanwhile, of course, big Ivy tournaments do have their issues, one of the biggest of which is that they attract a lot of people crawling out of the cabbage patch for, apparently, the very first time. Big entries appear with no understanding of judge obligations and the like, much less the niceties like MJP and conflicts. Oh, well. They’ll learn. The real issue is that some of them are rather imperious in their ignorance. They know way better than anyone else the way things should be because that’s the way they are back home, despite the fact that teams not honoring judge obligations is as unlikely back home as it is in the big city. Oh, well. We will address these issues as they arise. We want everyone to have a good experience, but a little of that is on them as well as on us.

So overall I’m feeling pretty good about the way things look. The only wildcard is speech, with which I have nothing to do. The thing is, they’re running it on Speechwire, which is neither here nor there, except the guy who wrote Speechwire will be at the tournament so I guess, when all is said and done, we’re in good hands. I know there are people who really like that program, and since I don’t know the first thing about running speech events, who am I to disagree? Additionally, the weather gods seem to be cooperating, as compared to last year when they blew away a whole bunch of teams, including the Sailors. 

The last big weekend of the season.

That went fast.