Ask Cruz: Volume I
NEW YORK, N.Y. — I’m excited to introduce a new feature on VBD in which I will seek answers to perplexing questions of debate trivia sent to me by members of the debate community. I’ll start with a set of questions that I have, indeed, been frequently asked.
You can post queries right here on VBD, and I’ll select a few to answer in my next installment. Alternatively, you can e-mail me directly.
Has a junior ever won the Tournament of Champions?
Yes. I was mistaken about this for some time, but Michael Mangus gave me the heads up, and R.J. Pellicciotta supplied the evidence. Actually, for the sake of full disclosure, the evidence was supplied many months ago, and I should have double-checked. R.J. reminded me of this via e-mail.
1992 featured the only junior/junior final round in the history of the TOC. (I am confident of this now that I’ve done a little double-checking.) Michael Erickson of New Mexico’s La Cueva High School defeated Vestavia Hills High School’s Jason Baldwin in finals. Jason made the only repeat final round appearance in the TOC’s history and won the title as a senior.
The evidence with which R.J. provided me was a results packet from the 1992 New York City Invitational; the tournament is held in October, and both Michael and Jason were in the field. (Neither won Big Bronx that year, by the way. The title went to Lana Israel of North Miami Beach High School.)
So, for those looking for history this season, it’s happened already. But only once. Could it happen again this year? What do you think?
Who was Malcolm A. Bump, the namesake of the annual tournament at Hendrick Hudson?
Malcolm A. Bump was an early debate coach at Hen Hud — considerably predating David Glass, Phyllis Hirth, and Jim Menick — and was, with Richard B. Sodikow at Bronx Science, a co-founder of the Mid-Hudson League.
Did Petey Gil get married? What is the deal with the “Gil-Montllor” moniker?
You won’t believe how many times I’ve been asked this! No, Debate’s Most Eligible Bachelor has not wed. (Petey’s mother, who was my Spanish teacher in high school, asked me to call him that. Actually, she didn’t, but I needed to figure out a way to work in the fact that his mom was my Spanish teacher, since I tend to work that into conversations with great frequency.)
“Gil-Montllor” has always been Petey’s last name. The Port Washington school district, of which Schreiber High School is a part, has a computer system that won’t accept non-alphanumerical symbols, so the lack of a hyphen meant that the second part of the last name needed to be removed to make it pronouncable. Go figure.
Has any team ever closed out Nationals in Lincoln-Douglas debate?
Despite what the tournament handbook presented each year by the NFL would have you believe, yes. In 1986, John Wertheim and Renee Hammond — both of St. Michael’s High School in New Mexico — advanced to the final round of Nationals. The two — former policy partners as well as boyfriend and girlfriend — were made to debate each other for the national title. Prior to the round, John handed Renee a rose on stage. Apparently, at the awards ceremony, the wrong victor was announced, though this was later clarified. Currently, only John is listed in the list of champions presented annually at the tournament.
What were the early TOC-qualifying tournaments in Lincoln-Douglas debate? Is it true that one could qualify to the TOC by winning one’s state tournament?
This isn’t a list from the first year — 1986 — but it’s an early one, from 1991. (I have the list from an old Rostrum, which included an advertisement for the TOC.) I know that the University of Pennsylvania Liberty Bell Classic was a TOC-qualifying tournament prior to 1991.
OCTAFINALS BIDS: The Barkley Forum for High Schools (Emory), the California Invitational (Berkeley), the Harvard National Invitational, the New York City Invitational (Bronx Science), the St. Mark’s Heart of Texas Invitational, and the Wake Forest National Early Bird.
QUARTERFINALS BIDS: The Homewood Patriot Classic, Loyola Marymount, the Malcolm A. Bump Memorial Tournament (Hendrick Hudson), Princeton Invitational (Cinncinati), the University of Massachusetts Invitational, the University of Oregon Invitational, and the Villiger Tournament (St. Joseph’s University).
SEMIFINALS BIDS: Appleton East, the Augustana Invitational, Bishop Healy Invitational (Holy Cross), Calhoun, the Glenbrook North Invitational, the Iowa Caucus, Isidore Newman Classic, the Roger E. Reeder Washington Classic (T.A. Edison), the Valley Mid-America Cup, the Vestavia Hills Over the Mountain Classic, the Watertown Speech & Debate Fiesta, and the Westchester Classic (Lakeland).
FINALS BIDS: The Charles Henderson Invitational, the Crestian, the Florida Blue Key, Pacific Lutheran, the Rutgers Invitational, or any tournament with more than fifty entries from three or more states. Qualifying to Nationals or to the NCFL also earned a debater one bid, as did placing first or second at one’s state tournament. Debaters could not use two finals bids to qualify to the TOC.
I am actually in the final stages of conducting a lengthy interview with J.W. Patterson, founder and director of the TOC, so we’ll have more on this in a bit.
—
Jon Cruz won the National High School Tournament of Debate Trivia Champions.
Popularity: 3% [?]
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Posted from: 167.206.203.14
November 26th, 2007 13:31
Good to know. And, great picture.
Posted from: 70.250.216.74
November 26th, 2007 13:50
Why doesn’t Jon Cruz have blonde highlights anymore?
Posted from: 143.231.249.137
November 26th, 2007 14:00
Are The Brothers Hershey the first twins to ever qual to ToC together? I asked this on the Glenbrooks thread and nobody answered.
Posted from: 76.30.71.86
November 26th, 2007 14:13
who was the ugliest team to ever win a local debate tournament in the history of public forum debate?
Posted from: 74.36.137.22
November 26th, 2007 14:17
Who has won the most TOC-bid holding tournaments in a single year?
Posted from: 67.8.227.203
November 26th, 2007 14:24
hahaha did petey get married that’s amazing
Posted from: 69.74.169.2
November 26th, 2007 14:36
This new feature can lead me to only one question. Have you taken up drugs?
Posted from: 165.254.143.3
November 26th, 2007 14:42
Sorry, Menick, but the above comment from Chris beat yours out in terms of LOL factor.
I have corrected an answer above that was based on some oft-repeated but never substantiated material. Kudos to R.J. Pellicciotta and Michael Mangus. :o) (I already have some answers to some questions for the next few installments, and they have been properly fact-checked. I’m working on Christian’s question as well.)
Posted from: 128.101.49.87
November 26th, 2007 15:16
How many times has the 33rd seed of St. Marx won the ToC later in his/her career. Could it happen again?
Posted from: 69.118.235.253
November 26th, 2007 16:00
who was the 39th seed at the glenbrooks in 2002?
Posted from: 69.150.34.109
November 26th, 2007 16:08
has there been a year when juniors have won every octa-bid tournament of the year?
Posted from: 165.254.143.3
November 26th, 2007 16:20
I should note that Mike Bietz attended the Watertown Speech & Debate Fiesta.
Posted from: 69.120.236.168
November 26th, 2007 16:32
How many people have qualified to the TOC only to miss qualifying the following year?
Posted from: 75.73.208.213
November 26th, 2007 17:09
I like Quinn’s question.
Funny that people would ask YOU about whether Petey has been married…
Oh and that picture is really good.
In terms of my question, have there ever been two 7-0s at TOC from the same school? I’m assuming there’s never been a closeout, but what’s the closest any team has come to achieving this feat?
Posted from: 24.151.21.99
November 26th, 2007 17:11
Ken’s question was the first that came to my mind.
Posted from: 69.150.34.109
November 26th, 2007 17:12
has there ever been a judge struck by every competitor in the division?
if not, can i please get that spot in history? let’s make it happen.
Posted from: 75.73.208.213
November 26th, 2007 17:17
Wow I’m dumb… just realized Mountain View was a ballot away from closing out TOC a few years ago (Hess and Rai).
Posted from: 66.108.94.165
November 26th, 2007 17:19
Bronx Science is the only school to close out the TOC. Jonathan Koppell and Peter Colavito were co-champions in 1988. The top speaker awards that i established at the Bronx Round Robin and the New York City Invitational are, respectively, named after them.
I will list near close-outs in a future installment. (That was already on my planned list.)
Quinn: the answer is yes. I will IM you about it. :o)
Posted from: 144.92.226.47
November 26th, 2007 17:47
Cruz, the Appleton East tournament is this weekend. You have to send me a copy of that information or at least a link.
By the way, I have figured out who won the Big Bronx in Policy from Wisconsin. I’ll send you a copy of the history sometime after finals.
It’s fun to know that I could have had 3 bids in 1991 without ever leaving the state of Wisconsin.
Posted from: 71.210.198.39
November 26th, 2007 17:49
it’s remarkable that new mexico forensics is mentioned twice here, seeing that new mexico schools have all but vanished from national circuit competition, and that the normal local tournament hosts around ten to fifteen competitors in varsity LD (usually about half of whom represent a single school). which other states have seen such drastic shrinkage in debate presence?
Posted from: 71.160.56.34
November 26th, 2007 17:49
jon -
how will you have a future column if you just answer the questions in the comments here?
Posted from: 66.108.94.165
November 26th, 2007 17:51
I already have a few questions that have been sent via e-mail. (And, thanks to AT, a question and an answer. :o))
Posted from: 70.250.216.74
November 26th, 2007 17:53
I believe that tommy clancy and joey seiler were also a ballot away from closing out the TOC.
Posted from: 71.160.56.34
November 26th, 2007 17:54
jon -
did your fingers tingle when you wrote:
“Bronx Science is the only school to close out the TOC.”
To answer David’s question -
I think the next closest was probably Hess (champion) & Prashant (semis).
Cruz could answer this better, but I think other schools that got close would be any other that had multiple people break.
Posted from: 66.108.94.165
November 26th, 2007 17:58
Bietz – yes to the tingliness.
Come to Big Bronx and see the trophies!
Mountain View, Westwood, and Edmond North are the most recent near close-outs that come to mind for me, with a champion and a semifinalist, a runner-up and a semifinalist, and a champion and a semifinalist, respectively.
I believe Regis was very close to closing out as well in the late 1980s.
Posted from: 70.250.216.74
November 26th, 2007 17:58
or maybe they were 2 ballots away.
I think Seamus and Nathan were also a ballot away the previous year.
Posted from: 66.108.94.165
November 26th, 2007 18:02
I just want to note here that Chris corrected himself, and I restrained myself from correcting him before. This was much the same approach he took when I mistakenly referred to the “wheelers” in Return to Oz as the “wheelies.” Thank you again for that, Chris.
Posted from: 75.71.25.178
November 26th, 2007 18:09
Has there ever been a LD Debater that has won NFL nationals and the TOC in the same year?Also, has there ever been someone to win NFL nationals in one event(say LD) and also win the TOC in a different event (C-x?)?
Posted from: 66.108.94.165
November 26th, 2007 18:11
Slurie – that will be answered in the next installment for sure. Stay tuned!
Posted from: 75.71.25.178
November 26th, 2007 18:23
thank you very much sir!
Posted from: 69.118.230.217
November 26th, 2007 18:24
Have a pair of siblings ever closed out a tournament?
Posted from: 208.120.18.198
November 26th, 2007 19:01
Who invented the horizontal flow?
Posted from: 66.108.27.200
November 26th, 2007 19:36
Who is Kaiser?
Posted from: 67.165.106.132
November 26th, 2007 19:55
according to popular legend (i obviously have no directly knowledge of its truth), the answer to ‘who invented the flow’ is actually laurence tribe.
Posted from: 65.33.216.205
November 26th, 2007 20:15
koppell/colavito represent! toc closeout ‘88
Posted from: 66.108.94.165
November 26th, 2007 20:19
http://photos.victorybriefsdaily.com/Big_Bronx_2007/trophy_2.jpg
Posted from: 74.67.55.150
November 26th, 2007 20:57
I believe the answer to the strike out question is probably Jason baldwin.
Posted from: 66.233.57.238
November 26th, 2007 21:02
what was the original amount of prep time given by the NFL when LD was invented?
Posted from: 74.36.137.22
November 26th, 2007 21:05
Who has the most “crabapple” awards? (The first person to miss breaking, 33rd, 17th seeds, etc.)
Posted from: 69.181.125.125
November 26th, 2007 21:14
christian–two names that spring to mind are gagan biyani (34th at st. mark’s, 33rd at glenbrooks, 34th at wake, 34th at manchester) and justin eckstein (34th at marx, 33rd at greenhill, might be forgetting some)
Posted from: 68.48.175.11
November 26th, 2007 21:24
Question I know the answer to, but it’s a nice trivia story:
Has any school ever closed out LD at NFLs and if so, what was distinct or unique about the pair of debaters?
Posted from: 66.108.94.165
November 26th, 2007 21:28
That’s in the next installment. Hush! ;o)
Posted from: 71.160.56.34
November 26th, 2007 21:47
“Has any school ever closed out LD at NFLs and if so, what was distinct or unique about the pair of debaters? ”
Conjoined twins?
Posted from: 76.173.196.255
November 26th, 2007 22:03
jon-
where did you debate and which accomplishement are you most proud of as a debater?
Posted from: 24.176.254.44
November 26th, 2007 22:07
Jon-
What is the greatest number of octas bid tournaments won by the same person in the same year, what are the tournaments (in backwards chronological order, of course), who was the person, what was their school, and what was the ballot count in each of the final rounds?
Posted from: 76.187.124.229
November 26th, 2007 22:07
Will the 2008 Victory Briefs Tournament feature an event titled: “Debate Trivia”?
If so, when is the bid at?
Posted from: 68.72.121.219
November 26th, 2007 22:14
the real reason:
When my mom went to register me for elementary school, the computers would not accept non-alphanumeric characters, so instead of compressing my name into an unpronounceable “Gilmontllor” (which is what the airlines do), she just left it as Gil, which is my father’s paternal surname.
Posted from: 68.72.121.219
November 26th, 2007 22:14
but I also have a trivia question:
who cares?
Posted from: 134.173.94.164
November 26th, 2007 22:15
when were the first sightings of a) the bowtie b) the sweatervest c) the briefcase d)the expando and e) the double-breath in LD?
Posted from: 76.173.196.255
November 26th, 2007 22:42
Who has won the most TOC qualifiers in his/her career?
Posted from: 71.210.198.39
November 26th, 2007 22:53
also, i once heard that in its early stages, ld was conceived to be a debate with three person teams. is this true, or am i just really gullible?
Posted from: 69.150.34.109
November 27th, 2007 02:04
what is the record number of bids a single student has held?
Posted from: 150.212.24.53
November 27th, 2007 11:32
i think nadir joshua’s 11 bids is actually one record that may never be broken. how many people even go to 11 bid tournaments? it would have to be another northeast debater with an extensive national schedule.
Posted from: 71.118.49.196
November 27th, 2007 12:11
Does the number of bids someone has ever correlate to success at the TOC?
Posted from: 67.155.35.66
November 27th, 2007 12:40
Here’s my question and I think it should be decently easy because I think all the data is probably contained in VBD or through links on it.
First semester at 2007-2008 year in the outrounds at TOC qualifying tournaments:
With 3 Judge Panels?
What % 2-1?
What % 3-0?
With 5 Judge Panels?
What % 5-0?
What % 4-1?
What % 3-2?
If someone wanted to get more complex you could also start looking at splits based on seeds/sides? For example I’d venture to guess most of the time the 1 2 3 4 seed get upset by the 32 31 30 or 29 seed it’s a 2-1 and not a 3-0.
But I think gathering this data should actually be pretty easy or at the very least gathering the data all Octos/Quarters/Semis Tourneys cause I know the data for finals stuff is sometimes pretty difficult.
I think the data could be analyzed to reach some pretty interesting conclusions.
Posted from: 67.155.35.66
November 27th, 2007 12:45
To answer Bietz’s question.
The answer is almost certainly yes. There is definitely a positive correlation between bids and success at TOC. For example look at the list of people this year with 4+ bids and see what percent break and then look at the 2-3 bids and see what percent break. If there was no correlation you’d see whatever 19/72 about 27% of people within each bid range breaking and I’m pretty sure that isn’t true. I’m also pretty sure that while there is a correlation it probably isn’t as high many people would assume it would be. But I’d be pretty confident in making the claim on average people with 4+ bids are more likely to break at TOC than people with 2 or 3 bids.
Posted from: 69.150.34.109
November 27th, 2007 13:36
well with 3 people this sitting on 5-6 bids (wade 5, becca 5, and donatti 6), and a lot of tournaments left in the year, i think this might be the year that someone breaks the record.
for everyone else’s records of the year
ldscoreboard.blogspot.com
Posted from: 69.150.34.109
November 27th, 2007 13:37
this year**
Posted from: 165.155.200.10
November 27th, 2007 16:44
Did Nick Tourville go to eleven bid tournaments?
Posted from: 66.108.94.165
November 27th, 2007 18:52
I think I accidentally placed the answer to Anjan’s question above instead of in my next column, *or* he just missed it. Probably the former. So the answer is above. I only noticed that because Menick had a good parody of it in his very excellent new post on Coachean Life.
Posted from: 69.248.217.251
November 27th, 2007 21:05
Now that the TOC and NFLs are answered, has anyone ever closed out CFLs?
Posted from: 76.17.195.90
November 27th, 2007 21:41
To add to Michael’s comment about inventing the flow, I think his college partner Al Alschuler (also wrote many many articles on plea bargaining) also had a part in inventing the flow. My dad had dinner with him and the story he told was that he and Lawrence Tribe walked by and art store and some display inspired the flow that we all know and love.
Posted from: 208.120.18.198
November 27th, 2007 21:53
Addendum to my q:
When did it fall “out of style?”
Posted from: 128.101.49.87
November 28th, 2007 02:55
im pretty sure that the number of bid tournaments Tourville went to = however many bids he had (9?) + grapevine, greenhill, valley, bronx, glenbrooks, and harker. nick, if youre reading this, youre still the Tourvillain to me.
Posted from: 76.224.122.25
November 28th, 2007 21:53
I don’t think Tourville bid at Valley if I remember correctly. He lost to Kamil Merchant in doubles. I also remember him bidding at Blake over Patrick Xia in octas (Wow I’m such a homer two NT debaters)