I am proud to say that I am now in the NYCFL Hall of Fame.
And, I’m not even dead. Although I am only in it for the money, it is nice to
be recognized for the work one does, even if one is a bit shy about accolades.
Unfortunately, induction into the Hall of Fame did not include a cash prize.
Having been to the Vatican and seen all the treasures there, I have no choice
but to wonder why they couldn’t have tossed just a ceremonial bit my way. You know: "I acquired some position...and a tiny Titian." Pope
Francis has made it clear that he doesn’t want any of the church's filthy lucre. Should I be looking
at Benedict XVI, Ret., as the source of my woes? I wouldn’t be surprised.
Sadly, we only got three rounds in on Saturday. Best laid
plans and all that. We had a minor kerfuffle in tab—a stupid mistake on my part
setting round times that took ages to track down—but that wasn’t what held us
back. 4 rounds either happens or it doesn’t, and you know at 12:30, if people
haven’t picked up all the ballots yet for round 2, which was supposed to start
at 12:00, that it simply isn’t going to happen. Then again, this was a lot of
first timers, on both sides of the room. We also had to mix in a bunch of
same-school pairings, which I never like. I have ideas on how to ameliorate
that, and I’ll put them into practice next time out. It’s more time consuming,
but if everyone shows up, and you can plan it in advance, it’s not so bad. The
thing is, if one school is half the field, at some point you want a round where
everyone isn’t debating that school. That requires intervention on your part,
but it seems intuitively more fair to me. The variety of opponents, especially
at the novice level where teams from a school might all be running similar
material, provides better round diversity than simply shuffling the teams. Next
one up is the end of December. I’ll do what I can.
One thing was for certain, and that is that, if this event
were any indication, the tide has turned in NY. I know it’s already turned most
everywhere else, but when you have twice as many PF teams as LD teams (and that’s
excluding Regis!), you know it’s over. I will point out that once upon a time
we also used to have Policy teams. Au revoir, CX. How long before we say au
revoir, LD? How long before instead of offering novice LD at big tournaments,
we offer novice PF? It’s only a matter of time, and waking up to smell the
coffee. I’m thinking of the Pups now. The numbers clearly demonstrate that the
overall attendance would be the same if they exchanged JV PF for JV LD. I’m not
suggesting that bid-worthy LD is going away any time soon. But if there are
fewer novices this year, there will be fewer varsity three years from now. The
process is inevitable, at least in regions dominated by circuit competitors.
None of this is surprising, of course. I’ve already
discussed the reasons at length. Mostly, of course, Benny XVI, Ret., is the one
to blame. Pope Francis has been an OOer since day one, and is out of the debate
game completely. That Benny guy, though… A PFer if I ever saw one. And he still
calls it Ted Turner Debate to boot.
No comments:
Post a Comment