In which, as always, we say Fie to independents

Jeesh.

The problem with a tournament like the one this weekend is that we haven’t established any limits on who can register. Originally this made sense. Now, not so much. The main problem is the number of kids who registered themselves. Despite my normal position against it, this didn’t seem like a bad idea originally, because, well, covid-19, but the ones signed up for this tournament can’t follow instructions worth a damn, not to mention that it is unlikely that any adult on the planet other than me knows they’re at this tournament. Running tournaments is complicated enough without endless emails from teenagers who don’t know what their partner is doing, much less what their judge is doing. And perish the thought, when they send those emails, that they identify their “school.” Sigh. Did I really need any further reason to ban independents when the season begins in the fall? 

I’ve been beavering away at the toolkit to virtualize it. I am a sucker for sending out documentation for things, and I depend on my own files to provide the best stuff. The most relevant front end stuff, that is, how to e-judge, is completed and posted. The backend stuff is in fairly polished final draft form. One more run-through should do the job. I’m ignoring platforms in all of it. I’ve now done chats on a handful of them, and, surprise, they’re all alike, a bunch of faces staring out at you from your computer screen. The reasons to use one over another at this point don’t bear analysis, and maybe never will, given that some schools may have this school account and some schools may have some other account, end of story. I know that at the moment a lot of institutions are holding out against Zoom because of reasons that don’t hold a lot of water. People seem to forget or maybe never knew that Zoom has a background of solid performance in the corporate arena, and perceived problems with the platform are more likely a problem that you (or your IT people) aren’t technically adept enough to solve and not something intrinsic to the platform. Anyhow, it's six of one, half a dozen of the other in the trenches. Cost and access are going to be the big issues when serious virtual tournaments are a weekly thing. And I think you can rest assured that next season serious weekly tournaments, the ones run by pros and where people like to try for bids, are going to be virtual. Schools in the Hudson Valley are all looking at different ideas for classes, mostly mixes of IRL and online, that inherently preclude the idea of flying down to Rio for the Heart of Brazil Invitational any time soon. And that's just the covid side of things, which doesn’t even begin to address rampant, Depression-era unemployment and an economy going down the tubes. Schools aren’t going to have two nickels to rub together in 20-21. To paraphrase somebody on the NDCA call, nobody in forensics is going anywhere until the football team is going everywhere. Don’t run out to the bus just yet, Junior.

Anyhow, back into the trenches tomorrow morning, for the last time for a while. 4 single flights, starting at 11, over around 6-ish. (The California teams account for the late start.) Thank God we somehow managed to get a lot of extra judges. We’ve been talking about single-flighting all the local events next season, and the more I think about it, the better it sounds. 4 rounds in about 7 hours versus 4 rounds in about 12 hours. How much convincing do you need?