It continues to amaze me how many people haven’t really
figured out that they need to register early for tournaments. Take the Quakers.
Registration opened November 1st, and slots were assigned a couple of weeks
later. And there’s 93 teams on the PF waitlist. Over a third of those on the
waitlist registered for the tournament within the last week! I mean, really?
It’s just not that hard. You see a tournament is open, you register some TBAs,
as the deadline approaches you solidify your entry with real names, and there
you are. This would seem to me much easier than sending me an email complaining
about the unfairness of the registration process, the clock, and life in
general.
Can you imagine what these people, or their ilk, did back in
the days before electronic registration and email, when you found out the
information on a tournament because they might send you a printed invitation
(if you had attended last year) and you responded by fax? Did these people
ever actually leave the house? The hardest thing for me starting out 20 years
ago was getting information on tournaments and planning my team calendar.
Today, that would be the easiest thing. But I guess, with a little work and
prayer and a dash of spice, you can take the easiest thing in the world and make
it hard, and then blame everyone but yourself for the consequences.
Sigh. I know I’m whining. It’s the college tournaments. They
can bring almost anyone to their knees. So many of the attendees are amateurs,
and I’m sympathetic to a degree, but then again, if you’re spending all that
money to attend an Ivy tournament like the Gem or Quakers, both of which I’m
now in the middle of, shouldn’t you have some idea how forensics works? If you
just want a field trip to a big city, you can arrange that a lot better without
putting a debate tournament into the middle of your plans.
Of course, it’s not only the amateurs that bug me. The pros
who are anything but are worse. For instance, if you have a team the size of
Toledo, and have had this team since the W. H. Harrison Administration, haven’t
you by now come up with the odd alum who will come back and judge for you? Was
their fours years with you such a horror that they’re not willing to come back
for the occasional weekend to give back to the team? Look around. There are
some teams that are, well, teeming with alums. And there are some that wouldn’t
know an alum from a hole in the ground. Which one are you? If it’s the latter,
you are doing this job wrong. Debate is a continuum in one’s life. It makes
high school students into unique and powerful individuals who want nothing more
than to develop more unique and powerful individuals, if for no other reason
than to have someone else intelligent to rule the world with some day. I
absolutely equate and measure good debate coaching by the number of alums that
coach attracts to help out. I have plenty of good examples of it in my region.
It’s more the norm than not, but then again, I do see schools year after year
that participate in debate but apparently with such disdain that the students
are out of there like a shot on graduation day, never to return. It’s the
coaches. They’re not doing the job right, or maybe they’re doing some other
job. If it’s the former, fix it. If it’s the latter, concentrate on that job,
where it matters.
Sigh again. I realize that no one’s forcing me to work these
big tournaments, but I feel a marginal obligation because they need grownups to
provide a connected communal norm and a measure of continuity. Plus it fills up
my weekends. And to tell you the truth, I’ve been as nice as marshmallow fluff
in dealing with the customers lately. But here we can dish. I know you, and I
know that you understand what I’m talking about. Yeah, I’m preaching to the
choir, but this allows me to go off and be nice when I’m supposed to be nice.
Can I get an amen?
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