Tuesday, October 23, 2018

In which we describe the Wilderness Years, kind of


And now we just sort of wait.

First, Princeton opened. Then, a couple of weeks later, we cleared the waitlists. In a week I’ll delete the TBAs, following a lot of hoo-ha emails reminding people to put in names. But aside from that, and checking every day to see if there’s any late arrivals to let in, there’s nothing much to do.

There aren’t a lot of bogus entries. Given that historically bogus entries have not gotten in no matter how clever they think they are, the word might be out overall. Or maybe the fact that people know I’m running the lists with JV discourages them from bothering. We have a no-tolerance policy for freebooters, because we’ve had a lot of experience with their free boots. Independent entries do nothing to enhance a tournament, and potentially do a lot to unenhance it. (Disenhance? Dishance? Dishpan hands? Whatever.) At the point where the NSDA established a definition of a real entry, why would I not follow it? We follow everything else NSDAish (except at tournaments with a CFL-only IE that follows CFL rules). Why fluctuate from that?

On fronts other than the Tiggers, we should be hearing from the Ben Franklin folks shortly. We’ve already been talking to the Columbians; they’re having room issues, of course, but it may be more serious than usual this time out. Final resolutions remain to be determined. On the high school front, Scarsdale is out of space for all its entries, Wee Sma Lex is building nicely, with PF running 3 or 4 to 1 against LD, with Policy way at the back of the field. Y has enlisted me for Ridge, predictably. So everything is about as it usually is.

Almost makes me wish I had a debate team to coach. But just almost. Almost is more than enough.

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