In which we toss out the baseball

On second thought…

The conversation* so far, and it’s a good one, has suggested that one of the problems of virtual tournaments is deciding on and running elimination rounds. One of the things we started doing at Bump lo these many years ago, and which Scarsdale continues on that same weekend, is a novice division that has a bunch of rounds for everyone until they run out of steam, maybe after about round 7. Awards go to the top whatever. This gives everybody, not just a select few, a whole bunch of rounds all weekend, which is great when they’re just starting out (the tournament is in November). And when you come to think of it, at the earliest stages of one’s career, the more rounds the better. That’s how you get good. (I won’t go into the illusory aspect of novice debate, where students who start out as stars in their first year flare out in their second year because, well, as I said, I won’t go into it now.) 

So, thing one, in virtual invitationals spread over a couple of days, no elims in novice. 

Thing two, in virtual tournaments spread over a couple of days, there will be elims in varsity. The nature of the competition at the varsity level pretty much requires it; these students tend to be sharks, not to mention bids and qualifications and the like. 

Thing three, as already discussed, is that limiting varsity to meaningful numbers for breaking to elims means fewer people debate in that division. At most of the tournaments I work, we have way more candidates for varsity than we have space, especially in PF. I would say that on average I’m working on a loss of about 50% of registrants who never get off the waitlist. (And these aren’t ephemeral entries.) So we need to create a new division. I suggested yesterday Triple-A <sarcasm> being the baseball nut that I am </sarcasm>. Better yet, after a little more thought, maybe we should A) adapt the good old Open moniker, and B) to distinguish Open from Varsity, eliminate elims. This division would be open to anyone. And it would, presumably, be limitless, as rooms could expand to meet the need. After, say, 7 rounds, awards go to the top whatever, because these folks are looking to get rounds too so that, eventually, they can swim with the sharks in the Varsity division.

In other words, here are the PF divisions at the 3-day Grand Old Ivy Invitational:

Varsity, cap at 172, breaking all 4-2s, prelims Fri and Sat, elims on Sun.

Open, 6 or 7 rounds, awards to the top 16, Fri and Sat.

Novice (limited to first- or second-year students in their absolute first season [2020-2021] of debate**), 6 or 7 rounds, awards to the top 16. Fri and Sat.

I can live with that. 

*I seem to spend half my life these days in workshops or conversations or planning meetings or slack chats talking about next season and our online future.

**There cannot be enough clarity when it comes to defining novices. Last season we had multiple cases of second-year debaters in or attempting to get into novice divisions, the former of which caused some serious agita, and happened enough so that we developed an SOP to handle it.