In which we cover this and that, with the odd rhapsodic waxing

Clearing waitlist entries is a daily chore. With the Tiggers, it’s an out and in process: if you drop out, I’ll put somebody else in. With the Franklins, there’s still some legroom, although I noticed that we’re nearing 200 in PF. Maybe it’s time to pull in those legs a bit.

TBAs bite the dust tomorrow for the Tigs. Nowadays that doesn’t mean as much as it used to. Presumably on the user ends it means that they finally decide who’s coming—and come on, people, it’s only two weeks away—but the numbers don’t shrink much, if at all. Aside from the bogus entries from non-high schools, everybody looks pretty legit to me. Of course, there may be minor trimming, but I’m not expecting much.

Speaking of non-high schools, I have to say that the level of fom toolery isn’t as high as it’s been in the past. Maybe people are getting the message. I guess it must be bleak, signing up for tournaments and never getting off the waitlist because your school doesn’t approve of your shenanigans, much less our tournament. I mean, there are some schools that are perfectly happy to have their maverick warriors scoot around the country, provided they're suitably chaperoned. But some schools obviously are of the persuasion, if we don’t have a debate team, you don’t get to be the debate team we don’t have. No one has yet come up with a good reason why the students who pursue private endeavors should be granted public support for them. I’m pretty sure that if your school doesn’t offer debate, it probably offers something else to fill up your empty hours. The problem is probably that there’s some literature that says debate gets you into better colleges, or colleges better, and people are so convinced that if you don’t get into X your life will be a total ruin that there’s no helping them. They’ve checked their reality at the door. Whatever. Not my problem.

At Scarsdale last week, I was further sunk into my comfy chair of not-my-problemism, now that I’m not coaching. No sick kids. No schlepping people to and from the high school, or heading north to the Hud when the tournament school is south of me. No coercing of judges to support the kids they insisted on giving birth to a decade and a half ago—I mean, they’re not my kids, and if you were going to be too busy to cover PF for them this weekend, you should have thought of that when you were jumping each other’s bones way back when. No explaining to parents that just because their kid is out, they’re still in. I mean, not having to deal with administrations and parents? Any wonder I retired from that end of it? I do miss the actual students, on the other hand. Coaching, as in explaining what you know about stuff to people who might actually listen to you, is fun. Explaining about stuff to people who think they know more than you do, on the other hand, especially when you really know an awful lot and they know an awful little, is not so great. Whatever. I have to admit that I still have a residual fondness for the Plebes, and kept a little eye on the progress of this year’s noobs. Good luck, folks. The debate world awaits you.