2013 Great Salt Lake/Long Beach Classic

[UtahDebate]

Hello folks,
We hope everyone's summer is going well. We are happy to once again invite you to the GSL/LBC swing in Salt Lake City, Utah on January 4-6, 2013. This year we have made several changes to respond to your feedback and improve your tournament experience. The invitation with all the details is attached, but here are a few highlights:

0. The swing will feature a 4 round parli tourney, a 6 round parli tourney, two two-round IE tournaments, and a 4 round LD tournament. But, you will be done by Sunday at 3pm if you stay all the way to the end by making it to finals at the second half. See attached schedule for more.

1. Topic areas have been eliminated, and brackets will be broken.

2. Multiple use time will be included in rounds at one half of the swing. This is a fixed amount of time for each team to use as prep or CX at their discretion.

3. Diversified food, including either Chipotle or taco trucks (shout out Todd Graham) and more.

4. IE's, PARLI, and LD will each be available. But, we have separated the schedules and prohibit cross entry in some events in order to create a more efficient, i.e., more livable, schedule.

5. The tournament will feature a reception for all community college students hosted by the UofU's office of recruitment and enrollment.

So, we have lots of goodies in store for you. Pack up your skis, buy some gloves, and head to Utah in January.

Best,

Mike Middleton - Univ. of Utah
Nick Russell - CSULB

[nmatthews]

Originally Posted by UtahDebate

1. Topic areas have been eliminated

2. Multiple use time will be included in rounds at one half of the swing. This is a fixed amount of time for each team to use as prep or CX at their discretion

10char

[Rybold]

Mike and Nick,

I haven't attended the Utah tournament since 1976 and won't be there this year either, but I thought I would respond on this thread.

Both the invites I looked at today (Utah and Back to the Beach) have excluded junior from sweeps.

I am wondering if this is a trend that I just haven't noticed before. Can you explain the rationale?

So many threads on this site have discussed opening up our activity more. I just wonder if discouraging junior entries (and not having novice) helps to satisfy this goal.

Gary

[UtahDebate]

Great questions. I can't speak for Nick in particular, but our main reason is pretty simple. First, we love junior divisions and hope they are robust, but we also want to incentivize entry, especially in IEs, in the open division. This helps increase the number of legs available for AFA qualifications which we support. But, you raise a good point and we could certainly offer junior sweeps trophies if that would help address any of the underlying concerns about encouraging junior competition. What do you think?

The more important question is, why have you not been to Utah since 1976 AND what would incentivize your attendance? Utah wants you!

Hope you had a great holiday.

[No Talent Clown]

We're over-thinking this. Open division is more educational than junior division. As educators, we should be encouraging our students to get into open division as fast as possible to better facilitate this education.

I can't speak to the I.E. culture in the northwest now, but when I was competing and coaching there, it was not uncommon to have junior divisions that were larger than open divisions by a wide margin.

Sandbagging is a pathetic and disgraceful practice that should be discouraged as much as possible, whenever possible.

*drops mic*

[Rybold]

Thomas,

OK – I know I have gone into this in prior threads, but I am curious on your backing for the “more educational” statements. I haven’t been able to find any empirics supporting either side, so instead, I rely on educational/motivational theory to help build my team. The two perspectives I mention here involve Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development and the Fundamental Attributional Error (I love the way Peters and Waterman discussed it in “In Search of Excellence” - during the same year as your birth).

Last year we had 72 students on our squad take awards. Often huge numbers can be a reflection of how a successful program works to recruit and educate students.

There might be various rationales for winning sweeps, but they pale in comparison with appropriate placement so as to encourage participation.

I am not sure why you think this is sandbagging. Or why having a junior or novice division would need to be demeaned. My comment seemed even more relevant when you think about our decreasing numbers over the years and the threads on how we can create a bigger tent.

I thought my point was that if you are going to have sweeps, no one should be left out. Your comment probably is more of a reason for eliminating sweeps, which I see as a worthy goal.

I also don’t mean to insult any open division competitors/coaches, but so many of them just don’t think education is the primary goal of the “game” (some even deny there is any proof of education from competition).

As for myself, I am coming to the conclusion that a different education takes place for students when the speed is not so great and the arguments not so gamey. Perhaps this is why I support junior competition, and LD, and BP (although we will have three open NPDA teams start our season).

I wonder if being a community college coach just gives me a different point of view and more options.

So please stop under-thinking this and show me where shoehorning unprepared students into upper echelon competition works anywhere.

Gary

[No Talent Clown]

I should say first that I coached at a community college last year and my teams at Pacific University in Oregon all started out with very little debate experience, so I'm coming at this from a similar perspective as you are.

My comment wasn't really directed at your post specifically as it was at the concept of sandbagging through junior division in general. When I say sandbagging, I mean knowingly keeping students who are good enough to be in open division in lower divisions, usually for the purposes of winning sweepstakes awards. This does not sound like what you do, Gary, and I apologize. Continuing this discussion, though....

It seems, and forgive me for putting words in your mouth, like you're afraid that if students are rushed into the minefield of open division too early, they'll get destroyed and quit the activity. My response is that building a false confidence through lots of junior trophies only to get destroyed once they get to open division would likely be worse for participation when everyone quits after realizing that their entire string of junior division successes did not really prepare them for open tournaments (i.e. nationals).

These students can become bitter and say things like "speed kills parli," or "kritics aren't real debate!" etc, when what they mean is "My coach did not prepare me for this by insisting that I stay in novice and junior for way too long and now I'm losing." This is, in my opinion, the root of many of the divides we see in the activity today--people who aren't adequately prepared for open division lashing out at the format itself rather than admitting that they stayed in lower divisions for too long and cannot compete in open. Winning junior division is great, but it should only happen for a student ONCE. After that, they should be moved up.

I see junior division as practice for open division. 2012 NPDA parli is fast, technical and requires tremendous research. This open division style--which you call gamey, which I think is an accurate characterization--represents a specific type of strategic education in the debate itself that junior division lacks, by your own admission. This is to say nothing of the depth and breadth of information students need to know to be competitive at the national level. If students are going to continue into open division eventually (which they presumably will), then competing in slower, less-technical junior division is doing them a disservice. As you mention, there ARE formats that facilitate slower, more traditional types of education (like BP) which are awesome. Junior division should not officially be "slow parli" when there's a limit on the number of junior tournaments they can compete in. It should be students trying, to the best of their ability, to be open division debaters. Keeping students in junior division when they'll eventually get thrown into the shark tank anyway--indeed, pretending the shark tank doesn't exist--seems like not the best strategy from any standpoint.

[Rybold]

Thomas,

You have well articulated your opinion on this matter. For the most part I think we are in agreement and that your words support my original post. On our differences I think you may not be supplying the proof I requested. Perhaps a few more of your arguments need clarification. [I want to leave IE out of this discussion for now, but we can revisit it if you like.]

First, you need to clarify what you mean by “keeping students who are good enough to be in open division in lower divisions.” I don’t believe that was your first argument or an argument you defend here. In fact, you may have a looser standard on moving up by having students move up in junior only after they win. The vast majority of those who move up don’t win a first place in Junior. Instead they made it to elims more than three times (the current rule). I have no problem moving debaters up, but I want to be sure it will not hurt their future effort. [To be frank, I often have debaters move up because THEY want to, in spite of my advice.]

So we are probably very close in the amount of time a junior would stay in junior. I still desire a clarification why anyone would want to demean appropriately placed juniors by not counting their victories towards sweeps.

Your initial argument dealt with pushing them up so as not to be sandbagging. Please think encouragement here, rather than punishment (which is their exclusion). If this were an open round I would now be using dehum impacts for the non-open unfortunates among us.

Second - A false confidence – This requires some backing on your part. In citing the FAE I tried to point to theory that contraindicates your conclusion. In attribution theory we act as naïve psychologists wherein we try to place causes for something that happens. Simply, if we encounter failure, the FAE indicates we will place the blame on the “state” of things. If we encounter success we are reinforced to work harder since our “trait” is the reason for success. In this thinking, appropriately placing competitors keeps them motivated in the activity.

I wish the world operated on “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” Unfortunately, it doesn’t, and often students give up. When encountering a critical affirmative or a string of claims without warrants, those debaters without resilience, built on prior victories, often reject the system and quit.

I think your argument actually supports this theory when you indicated students reject the system. This happens when students are introduced too early to games they perceive as silly. I think this area is a ripe area for research. Anecdotally, I have shown junior debaters a final round at NPDA on youtube and asked if they could understand one sentence. Mostly, they just laugh at the performance.

This type of game is an acquired taste. One you ease into. At the same time, one should only attempt this game if it is a worthy goal. This purpose is where I need more elaboration from you. I believe you conflated competition and education (or strategic education, a term which needs clarification/justification for transfer to something other than debate). One does open debate so one can get better at open debate. While I don’t reject this tautology; I feel it misses the point of my first post. What is the education being achieved in the game – especially the fast and technical aspects (a condition of the activity where we have concurrence)?

Third, I totally support that education can take place with more research (or even reading/discussing the research provided by team members/coaches).

However, open level debate is not the only route to achieve your extensive research assertion. A junior debater doing extemp and LD will also do extensive research (at least they do on my team). But far too often when they move into Open they memorize their favorite cap K (or K of T). Once again I am not trying to insult open debaters for playing the game they choose, but over-claiming the unique educational benefit of research in open competition is unwarranted in your posts thus far.

I believe students at all levels can be motivated in expanding their knowledge base. They don’t necessarily have to be crushed by someone spreading them with their favorite case. Wouldn’t they get more education when they can stay in the round with clarity of arguments where they can reasonably bring their knowledge into the analysis?

I may be so totally spoiled being at a community college in So Cal. We have plenty of opportunities to bring along young debaters without feeding them to fast and technical K-sharks. Then at the end of the year we can take them to the NPDA championships to warm-up for Phi Rho Pi. At that CC only tournament they will need to do NPDA and LD (plus IEs), adapt to great variety in the judging pool, and prep for motions with a partner only – no coaches, no research, no laptops.

It may be this variety of opportunities which inspires me to have my students adapt to a variety of situations. Certainly, I will fight for a budget to give them extra opportunities with LD and BP.

Sure they will need to eventually learn about technical issues, but I hope not to inspire an early overdependence.

I believe this is a fine education for them. When they transfer they will have the opportunity to play the game differently – perhaps for education – perhaps for trophies – perhaps for scholarships.

If they are doing it for scholarships – an extremely worthy goal – then I hope that the foundation they receive at IVC will double their opportunities, so that the BP community may be as generous as the NPDA community. [OVERT HINT: four year coaches – BP or NPDA – write me for a list of great transfer students who need scholarships]

One last idea. I haven’t decided how (or if) I would do this research project, but I wonder about the educational value of the end game for graduating seniors (especially after five years of eligibility – talk about winning awards!). If someone is debating for scholarships I am cool with getting as much money as you can. If someone is doing it for the dopamine/ego of the game I understand that, too (I debated for 4 + 4). But I am not sure the educational goals are as readily achieved. Debating can be very labor intensive and require so much travel. Debaters sometime neglect their classes. Perhaps more significantly, are the opportunity costs wherein a debater could learn a new skill, a foreign language, or focus on a just cause.

Sure, we get knowledge with our reading and debating, but it is often atomistic, arbitrary, and of little utility outside debate. The breadth of the activity alone prohibits us from depth of research, especially when compared to a decent research programs for undergraduates, in their chosen fields.

Regardless, a debater most likely will reach the law of diminishing returns at sometime during open competition career. If that debater experiences diminishment of effect, then defending the educational outcomes of competition becomes much more difficult.

This last part is only my opinion. I am grateful for this discussion. It has made me think more about my educational mission. And even though we may be approaching from different routes, I am happy that we seem to have the same destination.

Gary

[No Talent Clown]

Gary,

I think you're right that we're not really disagreeing. In terms of clarifying when students are "good enough" to move up, you're right--it's a subjective determination, which is arguably the problem. When are students ready for open? The fact that it's a broad definition that we leave to a large extent up to individual coaches/programs is open for to the exploitation that I discuss, i.e. keeping students in junior longer than necessary. My preference would be to move people up if it's a "judgement call" and if students are on the bubble between divisions.

In terms of sweeps points, how about this--students are allowed to collect sweeps points for their team in novice and junior divisions for the first time they break, but not after that (even though they still compete in those divisions for two more tournaments, those last two would not count for team sweeps). This allows for the rewarding of people we both agree are appropriate junior division competitors and offers a minor disincentive for students staying in lower division after they've demonstrated competitive success. Thoughts?

As for the theory you mention, I would think that it seems to suggest students would quit, i.e. "if we encounter failure, the FAE indicates we will place the blame on the 'state' of things," if they lose in open division. I think we both agree that junior division debate isn't representative of open division. We're just disagreeing on whether the confidence people have from breaking in junior makes them better of worse off once they join open. I can respectfully agree to disagree here.

As for education, there are two discussed here. The first is strategic education. By this I mean, the choices debaters make in the round, i.e. issue selection, prep-time arguments/frontlines, judge adaptation, etc. Those things are more difficult in open. Open division is chess, junior division is checkers.

The second type is what we've both called "real world" education about the goings on in the world. My warrant here is the topic areas at both NPTE and other national swings. The top teams literally weeks of research on these subjects, and junior level debaters are simply not expected to know that much. I totally agree that there are multiple types of education--believe me, I'm as big a fan of extemp as anyone--though I'm sure you would agree that open division in those events also expects MORE of students across the board. While certain debaters may focus on one specific argument (i.e. the cap K, etc), that's not necessarily a problem. I mean, students are reading graduate level philosophy books to write good criticisms, and I'd call this educational.

I really like the general mission statement of your program, and as someone who did four years of speech AND debate, I think full-service programs are great.

I hope this answered your questions and again, I don't think we're really disagreeing. Best,

T--

[Rybold]

On Sweeps…

I haven’t been clear with my position on sweeps. My team has won their fair share, so I don’t want to take the opportunity away from other teams, therefore, I don’t see a need for any changes. I guess I like it when debate and IEs are separated and then overall also given. A community college award is cool too. But I just don’t think we should exclude anyone from adding their points into the total. Again, I am not sure what good it does to exclude anyone or force them into events they aren’t ready for. Far too often the “legs” tail wags the “education” dog. Or to increase NPTE points with numbers seems sacrificial. Encouragement trumps discouragement in my philosophy.

I think we should give MORE points to those programs who bring along novices and juniors. Or perhaps a bigger case could be made for disallowing points from students who hung on for a 5th year. We could really complicate the system by making transfers split their points with the coaches who got them involved and motivated in the first place.

[Sorry – I always have a tendency towards sarcasm. Please ignore the last paragraph.]

What I really wish is that my stats skills were better (my dissertation was genetic method), so I could explain why the equalization movement in sweeps is unsound.

On its face adding percentages of unlike items just seems wrong. If there is a huge entry in category and a small entry in the other then an excessive weight is given to the smaller event. Surely, one of you quantoids out there reading this could come up with an argument why this system is so specious.

In those “equalized” tournaments should LD count in IE (like it does at NFA) or debate (like it does at Phi Rho Pi)? Utah doesn’t offer LD, so no decision here needs to be made.

On FAE…

Let me clarify my application of the theory. I think if someone does Junior until they are ready to move up, then they will work harder and stick around more often than those who prematurely get spread out of the room. I didn’t contend either side on whether they are better or worse off. Although, now that you mention it, having three more tournaments at junior would probably better prepare the student for a better experience when they move into open, then when students move over too soon. So yes they would be better off.

On strategic education…

I guessed that is what you meant. But where is the answer to the second part of my question: where does this education transfer to anything else? Isn’t this the tautology of the game that debating at open makes debaters better at debating open? And shouldn’t the difficulty factor be relevant to the student ability?

Seriously, help me out here. Recently, I had a discussion with another coach who claimed that there is no proof to take to administrators supporting our activity as educational. We can easily prove it is competitive. I believe the empirics will always elude us on this one. And my anecdotal evidence is too easily dismissed.

I am also afraid that strategic education will be seen as so specialized as to be irrelevant to an educational agenda.

On research education…

We agree on more research is better. But, in light of your position, my opportunity cost argument is perhaps even more relevant. Additionally, NPTE is one tournament, with a limited entry.

You seem a bit idealistic in your position. Isn’t Utah dropping topic areas. While, I love more specificity in topic research; most others don’t. I tried to encourage a movement that motions should at least be limited to the last 90 days of current events. I even limited motions to recent articles from the Economist.

As a community we are moving in the opposite direction on topic areas. I can’t get anyone else in So Cal to even consider them. And as a cc we hit few swings.

So the breadth of topics often makes the endeavor anti-educational. I have written on this before. The broadness of topic choices discourages debaters, so we hear the same arguments over and over (often ending in nuclear war or species extinction). I wish more debaters were reading graduate level philosophy. But a thread a few weeks ago even indicated that what is read is only a starting point for establishing an individual point of view, quite different from the original author.

To be fair there still plenty of debate geeks to spend more time online researching than they do in meaningful relationships.

But, I hope the junior level debaters on my team have a bit more balance.
Most have jobs, take too many units (many honors), go to 15-20 tournaments per year and still need to research. Losing in open is not a necessary condition for their education.

Thanks for your ideas.

Best,
Gary

[No Talent Clown]

Hey Gary,

We're pretty much agreeing across the board so I'll just discuss the "how do we sell this activity as educational to our administrators" and, by extension, how does open division facilitate this education?

My answer relates to my general defense of liberal arts education. What we've seen in recent years is that grad programs and lots of companies are looking for a more holistic education. Law schools, med schools, etc., prefer philosophy/comm/politics majors over more narrow specialties (i.e. pre-law, pre-med, etc.) because a broader approach encourages critical thinking, empathy, communication skills (i.e. most debates), and other awesome-but-difficult-to-measure attributes. I don't have a link to the study but it was making the rounds on facebook a week or two ago.

Does that make sense?

T--

[BReid]

FWIW, "strategic education" is probably valuable inasmuch as it can be a productive tool for developing the ability to identify various contingencies.

[UtahDebate]

Originally Posted by Rybold

...Utah doesn’t offer LD, so no decision here needs to be made.

...Isn’t Utah dropping topic areas.

Insofar as this is the tournament announcement/invitation thread for the GSL (or at least it was), let's try to keep it accurate:

1. We do offer LD.

2. Topic areas have been eliminated based on community feedback.

Thanks.

P.S. Gary, while you have answered many questions, you have not answered mine. Feel free to backchannel if you prefer m dot middleton at utah dot edu.

Cheers.

[Rybold]

Thanks for your opinions on this. While issue selection is a cool skill for winning and may actually develop priority setting, it usually is not one of the first things that comes to mind about a communication education. I am not sure it is a valuable selling point for our activity’s educational mission. I really like it and want it in-round, but once again it is mostly limited to winning in open (although juniors need this skill also).

I also think a liberal education is valuable. However, as a community college coach, I don’t need to sell open competition to our administrators. Although, they do seem pleased when we place high on the NPDA rankings (or maybe that is my promo of our successes).

As an educator what is it that I want to have at the core of pedagogy? Do I think the education at the open level (especially as it has recently evolved) is the best thing for those students who are in the beginning of their college careers?

Maybe.

I have had a half-dozen teams qualify for NPTE and they all loved it (if they were allowed to compete due since many times we have a conflict with valuable CC tournaments).

I have no quarrels that NPTE is a fun game. And the many collateral social activities a drawing card for those so inclined.

But, while enjoyment can be part of the motivational force (and can also be a strong part of junior competition), it should not be conflated with education.

So what should be at the core?

I turn here to the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. Their research of Fortune 500 companies revealed applied skills that we are especially suited to develop in our classes and competitions. (see the attached report).

As you can see the three applied skills prized most by business are: oral communication, team work, and professionalism.
Ask yourself is NPTE is uniquely positioned to deliver on these applied skills.
The emerging skills also list foreign languages (see opportunity cost argument above) and critical thinking.

Again does NPTE produce the best critical thinking? Or are the strategies aimed more towards the game?

Now I know that many debaters are not going to end up in the corporate world. MORE POWER TO THEM! I, too, did not perceive myself as a corporate warrior when I was an undergrad. Then when I got my BA, I got hungry (literally) and worked for four major corporations, mostly in sales and management, for the next 16 years.

So my belief now as an educator is to follow the advice of Postman and Weingartner and provide our students with “strategies for survival.”
This should start in speech one classes with a focus on critical thinking and lots of speaking (most IVC instructors require 15 speeches minimum from each student). It should continue in forensics with a system that brings students along in a variety of events, prepares them for upper-division classes, assists in scholarships (HINT, HINT), and even some resume building (putting national champion on a vita is great, even if PRP, not NPTE).

I can do this with junior division. Therefore, I don’t want our neophytes demeaned by excluding their sweepstakes points. I would rather see a contest without junior or without sweepstakes than to signal what I consider to be a lesser value.

Again, debate and IEs should be considered separately here. Debate should have all three divisions and should celebrate victory at all levels. Lots of celebration reinforces good behavior and more motivation (really, go and read Peters and Waterman’s chapter on motivation – it is powerful).

If legs are the main driver than make it open only. Legs already distort competition where in the best competitors aren’t there, less they be accused of being “leg hounds.”As a TD you have a right to determine what you want to do with the tournament.

In So Cal we will have Open/Novice at many tournaments. A novice is someone who hasn’t placed 1,2,3 in any tournament. I like that system.

Our league recognizes n,j,o only because we hold some of the biggest tournaments in the country (our champs could be in the top 10 size-wise).

We not only give cc and 4 year sweeps, we have small schools, and novice awards. Celebration and more celebration.

PSCFA also hosts a novice tournament at the end of semester to celebrate the next-year’s crop of champions. We add those points to total points for the other two championships and award a year-long sweeps. In this case, novice may be even more valuable than open!

Our highest value as educators should be growth. We need to find more ways to bring in more students to provide this excellent education for them. Quantity and quality are two easy criteria.

NPTE has a place inside our tent. It isn’t the tent.

Gary

[Rybold]

Mike,

Sorry, my memory confused your's and Nick's tournament - Beach is not holding LD.

So is it an IE or Debate? - Bates changed his mind from last year.

On attending your tournament. In 1976 I debated there as a senior at CSUN and the year before as a junior at Cal Poly, Pomona. Once I started coaching at a CC we find it extremely difficult to attend out-of-state tournaments.

First, we need board approval (not required for in-state tournament).

Second, the cost of overnight to Utah is a strain on our budget. We usually don't just travel a few teams. There are so many tournaments locally we can be gone 15 weekends without a hotel cost. So we opt for quantity over quality.

Third, we host a tournament for after-school programs that weekend. It is a great way for us to give back, educational for our students who judge, and a fund-raiser.

Fourth, Dude - have you ever been in So Cal on the first weekend of January?

Good luck to your squad and tournament.

I've enjoyed the thread.

Gary

[UtahDebate]

Bump! Remember:

The swing will feature a 4 round parli tourney, a 6 round parli tourney, two two-round IE tournaments, and a 4 round LD tournament. But, you will be done by Sunday at 3pm if you stay all the way to the end by making it to finals at the second half. See attached schedule for more.

And, the following changes have been implemented:

1. Topic areas have been eliminated, and brackets will be broken.

2. Multiple use time will be included in rounds at one half of the swing. This is a fixed amount of time for each team to use as prep or CX at their discretion.

3. Diversified food, including either Chipotle or taco trucks (shout out Todd Graham) and more.

4. IE's, PARLI, and LD will each be available. But, we have separated the schedules and prohibit cross entry in some events in order to create a more efficient, i.e., more livable, schedule.

5. The tournament will feature a reception for all community college students hosted by the UofU's office of recruitment and enrollment.

[UtahDebate]

Hey folks,
The Red Lion is now accepting your reservations through December 29, 2012 for the GSL/LBC swing. The rate is $72.00 for up to quad occupancy.

To make reservations, email our hotel coordinator Jerry Mika at jerry.mika@redlion.com. Ask for the "Great Salt Lake CSULB Invitational." He will book your rooms and provide you with the hotel required rooming list (used only to assist with lockouts and to ensure the security of your students). The room block is available Thursday night through Sunday night, so stay over and do some late sunday wintersports in the greatest snow on earth.

Thanks. See you there.

Mike

[UtahDebate]

Hey folks,
The Red Lion will be offering the same service you have come to expect this year, but we will have a new contact for your rooms, etc. The former sales manager who handled our account, Jerry Mika, has retired. The new sale manager is Josh Porter. You can reach him to secure your room reservations at Josh.Porter@redlion.com, or by phone at 801-524-0312.

When you are ready to make your reservations, please complete and submit TO RED LION, not to me the attached room list.

Thank you.

Mike, Nick and the Utah and Long Beach teams.

[kpreston]

Are you looking to hire any judges? I would love to make the drive out for this tournament and tiptoe back into parli-land.

[KCalderwood]

first initial + last name @csulb.edu
first initial (dot) last name @utah.edu

google is a beautiful thing

[Jeffro]

I too would love to be hired for the GSL. Fly me, house me, feed me and I'm yours. I'll even cut cards and do stuff.

[kpreston]

Originally Posted by KCalderwood

first initial + last name @csulb.edu
first initial (dot) last name @utah.edu

google is a beautiful thing

Shut up, Kevin. Bitches these days be using gmail and shit, and I just wanted the answers to come to me.

Neesen took care of it.

[UtahDebate]

1. I wouldn't be so sure that "Neesen took care of it." I certainly haven't heard anything which is probably a bad sign that it was "taken care of," since I am writing the checks, etc. But, I would be happy to hire you.

2. We will be hiring judges. An announcement will be coming out after NCA when I have a hot minute to answer more fully.

3. Several folks have contacted us about hires and are on the list, including the two of you if you are still interested once the announcement is made with pay details etc.

[irishmex_rebel]

My main question to those who defend junior division counting for sweeps is, How does eliminating it trade off with junior participation and education?

A. If junior sweeps no longer count at every tournament, wouldn't coaches still enter their kids in junior for educational purposes (since we all agree junior is educational)? If not, then I'd say that is a damning indictment of the entire junior system as a whole and education really isn't the goal to begin with.

B. It doesn't trade off. I've been a junior competitor and I've been a community college competitor. I don't think a single junior competitor cares a single amount if their points count for overall sweeps, but rather they care about their own personal successes. Eliminate it tomorrow for every tournament and not a single junior competitor would care or certainly not care as much as their DOFs do.

C. A huge part of it (the generic practice) is sandbagging. Let's be really honest. I saw it as a CC debater all the time and its blatantly obvious. DOFs will hold competitors back (very grateful to Jim Wyman for never doing that to his kids) and even do so against the rules (APU last year when Cerritos competitors got moved up from junior to senior and had their last two rounds invalidated) in order to win sweeps points and artificially inflate how good their program is. It is disgraceful and it always annoyed me.

D. It is unfair. I thought this even as a junior competitor but it is simply unfair for junior or novice rounds to count as much. That is simply ridiculous. You cannot honestly tell me that they are worth the same competitively. At the most we should compromise. The rounds should count as 1/2 or maybe even 1/3 as much as senior/open rounds.

[Corax]

Originally Posted by irishmex_rebel

At the most we should compromise. The rounds should count as 1/2 or maybe even 1/3 as much as senior/open rounds.

3/5 Compromise?

[irishmex_rebel]

Originally Posted by Corax

3/5 Compromise?

3/5ths is far too much.

[Zach Tschida]

Posting on behalf of Nigel:

Hey everyone,

Zach Tschida and I are looking to be hired by either the tournament or a squad. We don’t require lodging or airfare, but would like some reimbursement to cover travel costs. Also if food is not provided by the tournament, we would also appreciate that as well!

Fill out your D prefs early folks!

Reach Nigel at xnigelx1@gmail.com

Zach at ztschida720@gmail.com

[UtahDebate]

Food is provided for all competitors and judges for all meals through breakfast on Sunday. Lunch on Sunday will be provided to competitors and judges still in the tournament (semifinalist and finalist) only.

I will also add both of you to the list of hired judges expressing interest and will contact you within the next two weeks about being hired as tournament judges, assuming you aren't already hired out by attending teams.

[nmatthews]

UCLA is looking to hire a judge to cover a half commitment for both halves of GSL. We'd prefer someone who already has their own housing/transportation. PM/Facebook/email me (the09hutt[at]gmail[dot]com) if interested.

- Nick

[UtahDebate]

GSL Half: http://forensicstournament.net/GSL2013/13/home/

LBC Half: http://forensicstournament.net/LBC2013/13/home/