Aaseesh Polavarapu Wins Vestavia
VESTAVIA HILLS, Ala. — The Vestavia Hills Over the Mountain Classic is one of the longer-running titles on the national circuit, and this year featured competition from a variety of states, including Alabama, Louisiana, New York, and Tennessee.
The final round was a face-off between Aaseesh Polavarapu of Brentwood High School and Will Simoneaux of New Orleans Jesuit. Aaseesh won the round and, thus, won the tournament.
Congratulations are also in order for New Orleans Jesuit High School’s Jacob Pritt and Nick Falba, who closed out the final round of novice Lincoln-Douglas debate.
Aaseesh is coached by Harriet L. Medlin and Carrie Robin Menapace; Will, Jacob, and Nick are coached by Travis Ian Smith.
(Jason Sun and Travis Ian Smith contributed to this report.)
—
LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE
QUARTERS
Mountain Brook CH def. New Orleans Jesuit AM (Andrew Marquis)
Brentwood AP def. Mountain Brook LE (Lizzie Ernstberger)
New Orleans Jesuit WS def. Altamont SA (Sasha Arijanto)
Mountain Brook KW def. Ruston KC (Kenneth Cross)
SEMIS
Brentwood AP def. Mountain Brook CH (Claire Herren)
New Orleans Jesuit WS def. Mountain Brook KW (Katherine West)
FINALS
Brentwood AP def. New Orleans Jesuit WS (Will Simoneaux)
CHAMPION
Brentwood AP (Aaseesh Polavarapu)
–
NOVICE FINALS
New Orleans Jesuit JP and New Orleans Jesuit NF close out.
NOVICE CO-CHAMPIONS
New Orleans Jesuit JP (Jacob Pritt)
New Orleans Jesuit NF (Nick Falba)
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75 Responses to “Aaseesh Polavarapu Wins Vestavia”
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Posted from: 68.175.60.130
February 23rd, 2008 04:16
I know NFA has made the trip down from New York…so I want to wish good luck to my fellow New Yorkers!
Posted from: 204.210.156.240
February 23rd, 2008 07:39
NFA is going to bid at this tournament.
Go Ben and Rob, and whoever else is there.
Posted from: 24.6.159.5
February 23rd, 2008 12:46
Wade Houston ftw!
Posted from: 128.192.223.134
February 23rd, 2008 17:09
FYI, wade is not at vestavia this year.
Go Jesuit for the close-out!
Posted from: 128.192.223.134
February 23rd, 2008 17:33
In quarters:
Jesuit WS
Jesuit AM
Jesuit MB
Novice quarters:
Jesuit NF
Jesuit ST
Jesuit JP
Posted from: 204.210.156.240
February 23rd, 2008 18:40
Any results for NFA
Posted from: 204.210.156.240
February 23rd, 2008 18:41
Also, how big was the field this year becuase it was 25 last year.
Posted from: 128.192.223.134
February 23rd, 2008 18:42
Ruston KC was in quarters too
Posted from: 66.108.131.237
February 23rd, 2008 19:40
which school got the most toc bids collectively in a single year?
Posted from: 66.108.131.237
February 23rd, 2008 19:44
sorry i meant to post that in ask cruz
Posted from: 72.254.168.136
February 23rd, 2008 23:04
sorry to disappoint you matt i dropped a bubble round to the kid in finals and im not sure where rob got knocked out but we still managed to get speaker awards we were both 3,3
Posted from: 216.83.253.42
February 24th, 2008 00:01
semis:
jesuit ?? defeats mountain brook kw
brentwood ap defeats mountain brook ch
finals:
brentwood ap defeats jesuit
3-0 (tang, roberts, ?)
Posted from: 72.254.176.234
February 24th, 2008 06:27
[…]
Posted from: 128.192.223.134
February 24th, 2008 07:12
Congratulations to Will for finally getting that long sought after bid. You’ve come a long way from the inexperienced kid at Apple Valley last year. I’m really proud of you.
Congrats also to Jesuit for closing out Novice finals (especially Nick and Jacob) and a great tournament overall.
Posted from: 66.32.49.82
February 24th, 2008 10:23
i suck at getting results.
gj aaseesh
Posted from: 216.220.216.172
February 24th, 2008 10:37
it was Jesuit WS dropping to Brentwood AC (As?)
3-0, roberts, tang, basinger
Posted from: 69.134.16.205
February 24th, 2008 11:50
YEAHHHHHHHHH AEESSSSSSSSSHEESH
Posted from: 69.151.201.171
February 24th, 2008 12:37
Congrats Aaseesh and Will.
Posted from: 76.30.134.165
February 24th, 2008 13:42
MANY CONGRATS AASEESH
Posted from: 204.210.156.240
February 24th, 2008 16:10
congrats everyone.
how big was the field
Posted from: 68.53.55.168
February 24th, 2008 16:40
YAY AASEESH!!!
YAY AASEESH!!!
YAY AASEESH!!!
Posted from: 69.12.136.2
February 24th, 2008 17:01
congrats will!
Posted from: 71.71.219.239
February 24th, 2008 17:31
Congrats Aaseesh on the win
Posted from: 24.6.159.5
February 24th, 2008 18:21
Congrats to New Orleans Jesuit!
Posted from: 69.180.210.210
February 24th, 2008 20:18
congrats aaseesh
Posted from: 128.192.223.134
February 24th, 2008 21:49
The field in varsity LD was 28 debaters which is up 3 from last year. Hopefully this will be the beginning of an increase in attendance and not a slight increase fluke one year.
There are a lot of great tournaments in the South (Newman, Vestavia, St. James, Montgomery, and then Jesuit New Orleans just restarted their tourney this year) that are good for those hunting for easier bids and the more teams that start coming and bringing more judges and coaches and more attention to the tournaments, the better these tournaments will become and the more bids they will be likely to get.
Posted from: 75.211.93.117
February 25th, 2008 00:10
Why does a tournament with 28 debaters have a bid? The answer is “tradition” and politics. Honestly, I’d say instead of “improving” the tournament while letting it keep its bid, I’d say the right thing to do would be to strip the bid and wait until the tournament improves to give it back the bid…. but that’s just me.
Posted from: 67.165.106.132
February 25th, 2008 00:27
vestavia got rocked one year by some weather-related travel difficulties and never fully recovered from its bid dropping - lowering the bid too soon was what killed this tournament. maybe we should be more cautious in killing off tournaments. what people forget is that 4 years ago this tournaments biggest complaint was that it was too big (when it was a quarters bid w/ 5 rounds breaking to octas). plans were made to go to 6 rounds/doubles in hopes of one day building it to an octas bid. now it has 28 debaters.
dont over react folks, it kills debate in regions that need it.
Posted from: 67.165.106.132
February 25th, 2008 00:30
ps michael boyle i am officially calling you out: who is the “political” mastermind keeping vestavia on the bid list? what cabal has convened? im all for skepticism and conspiracy theories, but theyre much more fun when theyre plausible.
Posted from: 12.215.129.141
February 25th, 2008 00:34
Is this the same Michael Boyle who went bid hunting over Thanksgiving in the state of Iowa at a tournament with 15 people?
Posted from: 75.211.93.117
February 25th, 2008 10:12
Yes Ernie - I don’t deny that - as a competitor, as long as these rules stay in place, I have no problem with students going to those tournaments. You play by the rules that are there at the time. I have no problems with people going bid hunting at Vestavia, etc. because that’s the situation in place. What I’m saying is that I think the system probably needs a change
–
Michael - I don’t see a conspiracy here - you entirely misunderstand what I meant by tradition/politics. The reason that Vestavia has a bid, as opposed to other tournaments with 25 debaters, is because the program has a long history in LD debate. I do not think this should be disregarded, but I do think the realities of this tournament should also be looked at - from what I’ve heard from various people that have been involved involved in the placement of TOC bids at various tournaments, and I’ll admit it’s hearsay, the primary reason that this tournament still has a bid is because of respect for the program. Again, I don’t have a problem with this - back when I judged every week in the Northeast, and when I debated, I had a huge amount of respect (and still do) for the Scarsdale program - but that doesn’t mean I’d automatically say the Scarsdale tournament should receive a TOC bid (I haven’t been to the tournament - maybe it deserves one, but I don’t think it deserves one because it’s being run by a respected program).
–
Now, the TOC is a tournament run by people who can make their own guidelines. I have no problem with this. That said, I think some criticisms can be made with how it’s run, including the bid process, without attacking the integrity of the tournament as a whole. Similarly, I don’t think (or I hope at least) that criticizing the fact that Vestavia has a bid is the same thing as criticizing the tournament as a whole - I don’t think arguing about the competition level and the number of participants is an indictment of the tournament, but rather an indictment of the way in which the bid for it was determined.
Posted from: 68.209.198.15
February 25th, 2008 11:36
vestavia should definitely keep its bid.
1. low turnouts result in higher turnouts in the following years. people often look to the previous year’s field strength in deciding tournament attendance, so the perception of a tournament as an “easy bid” is likely to make it attractive to a wider range of competitors. further, vestavia’s convenient location on the calendar means it can bring in teams looking for that final opportunity for a bid (read: harker invasion two years ago).
2. there are lots of other tournaments with attendance problems. take for example regional tournaments in washington that have toc bids. maybe we should just take away all of their bids as well as vestavia’s. oh, what’s that? the northwest has good competitors who deserve to be at toc? god forbid the south have any of those either. regardless, the criticism here seems to be indicting small tournaments in general, not just vestavia. r
3. judging quality in alabama is increasing. the graduation of this year’s senior class certainly won’t hurt. the stigma of alabama as being entirely lay is slowly diminishing.
…
…
…
4. we should just ban public forum and force everyone to go back to ld. problem solved.
Posted from: 67.165.106.132
February 25th, 2008 12:02
so you are prepared to defend the claim ‘there is no reason for vestavia to have a bid except that its vestavia’? great. what about…
a) the relatively small number of bids in the southeast compared to texas or new england? it’s a lot like cali in that there are tournaments in the general area but that doesnt make them easily accessible (it would take a school from birmingham 8 hours to drive to blue key and even longer to get to crestian).
b) the way southern bids have been ravaged in the past few years. when i was a freshman, homewood and vestavia were both quarters bids and isidore newman (5-6 hour drive) was the most competitive semis bid in the country. where have those bids gone?
c) the argument i made above about how dropping the bid was a death sentence to the tournament that used to be nationally competitive. in 2003 it had a pretty intense pool (apple valley, lexington, kendra, plus all the southerners). it retained its quarters bid in 04, but the pool was much smaller because it was an awful weekend to travel (i remember that lexington got snowed in at the charlotte airport). i believe this also coincided with a coaching transition year for vestavia, so it was not the smoothest period of sailing the program ever had. once the bid got dropped to semis, attendance was way down but it still managed to attract teams from california and new york in 05. i didnt attend in 06, so i cant speak to that part of its history, but if you ask me vestavia was a victim of one year of bad luck followed by bid-level panic that created a self-fulfilling prophecy. it was one of the best-judged and best-run southern tournaments and the last minute bid hunters favorite destination.
–
is my point that vestavias bid should go back up? no. but i think the tournament serves as an excellent cautionary tale to those who demand bids be dropped after 1 year of subpar performance. and to be honest, theres another issue at play here: why do you care? why does this matter to you? have you ever been to vestavia? have you even been within 100 miles of vestavia? again, i have absolutely no problem with people venting their frustration w/ certain tournaments, but it might be nice if there was a little more foundation for you to go on.
Posted from: 66.32.49.82
February 25th, 2008 17:21
since i’m from vestavia, i feel the need to defend our tournament even though my fellow alabamians have defended it pretty sufficiently.
we don’t have our bid only because of our tradition. even though we only had 28 competitors in the pool, we had 7 states represented (NY, LA, AL, MI, TN, GA, WA). the tournament is run very efficiently - we moved the tournament to 6 rounds this year and expected to have to move semis and finals to sunday, but our excellent tab (thanks to tara mclellan) worked hard enough to finish the entire tournament in 2 days. like previously, said, there aren’t enough bids in the southeast area excluding florida, unlike the huge number of bids in the northeast and california.
also, i would say we have excellent hospitality at our tournament. the food (grilled cheese especially) is awesome and sometimes cheaper than at other tournaments. for coaches, there is a dinner that is basically like dining at a restaurant.
also, i think it’s pretty insulting to talk about politics over our bid without being really specific. good thing you retracted that statement after mangus called you out.
finally, thank you everyone for coming to our tournament and please keep coming back. get that last bid.
Posted from: 128.192.223.134
February 25th, 2008 22:50
As a Louisianian, a former Southern debater, and current Southern coach, I have to speak up.
1. There are more politics to take Vestavia’s bid than to keep it.
2. There are only 5 tournaments in the South that have bids and excluding Emory’s Barkley Forum, and 3 are finals bids (with Wake being a semis bid). Taking away Vestavia’s bid would suggest taking the bids of St. James and Newman (comparable tourneys) and leaving the South with 1 bid tournament in Atlanta that is one of the top 4 tournaments in the country in my opinion. That’s an entire region of the country you’re excluding from the circuit and the TOC.
3. Stripping bids is a proven way to DECREASE a tournament’s quality. People stop going when there is no longer a bid because there’s nothing to keep them interested. Point in case - Jesuit N.O., Montgomery, decreasing St. James and Vestavia’s bids.
4. The number of competitors does not reflect the competition at tournaments. Competition is typically very difficult, especially in outrounds despite the low overall turnout. E.g. this year semis at Vestavia included 4 debaters who had each been in multiple bid rounds or had at least one bid. Last year at Vestavia, Wade and I had a very tough final round. Newman last year had 5 TOC qualified debaters in quarters and one with one bid.
5. Other parts of the country (Northeast, TX, CA) have an abundance of bids and bid tournaments meaning that less deserving debaters qual or bid simply because of the sheer quantity of bids. In the South debaters either have to make it through the highly competitive Barkley Forum or go all the way to finals for the bid.
6. Just because you haven’t debated them doesn’t mean there aren’t quality debaters who deserve chances for bids in the South or will contribute to the quality of Southern tournaments like Vestavia: Wade has something 8 bids now. I had two and would have had more had I not had a year taken by Hurricane Katrina. Last year Montgomery Academy had 3 debaters qualled for TOC. This year Jesuit N.O. has 4 bids.
Don’t try to make points about things you don’t really understand. Vestavia deserves its bid and it should not be taken away. I encourage everyone to come to Southern tournaments for easier bids but also for good competition, good hospitality, and good food. I especially encourage you to come down to Newman’s tournament in New Orleans and Jesuit N.O.’s tournament in New Orleans which I am petitioning on behalf of to regain its bid.
Posted from: 69.206.156.49
February 26th, 2008 00:00
All bid talk aside, I just want to second on that grilled cheese
mmmm… my favorite part of vestavia
Posted from: 68.175.60.130
February 26th, 2008 00:38
I have heard great things about the Vestavia tournament from many people who have attended…and that includes folks from past top speaker Ryan Hamilton to Northeasterners who have attended the tournament in recent years. And these great things don’t just include some great grilled cheese. From my perspective, a lack of advertising for the tournament the last year or two has probably contributed to its continued smaller size more than anything else. And while I don’t always agree with Michael Mangus on everything, his summary of Vestavia’s self-fulfilling prophecy seems dead-on and very well-reasoned.
.
The folks at Vestavia put on, from what I can tell, a great tournament. And I realize I love debate history and pomp and circumstance, but really, storied titles are a very cool thing, and there are few tournaments with as long as impressive, storied a legacy as the Over the Mountain Classic.
.
P.S. Vestavia’s date conflicts with our district tournament, which has unfortunately ruled out our attendance. I look forward, though, to bringing Bronx Science to the Deep South in December for Isidore Newman next year.
Posted from: 205.188.116.76
February 26th, 2008 08:32
i’m not trying to start a fight or even engage in this argumenta as I know nothing about the Vestavia tournament. But I do find it humorous that Ian Gunn, at the beginning of his comment, discusses how if we were to remove bids from vestavia (and other tournaments he says are comparable, even though I don’t know why it would have to work like that)then we’d be eliminating a region from bids and the toc. Then he goes on to talk about how all these people in late outrounds at these tournaments already had bids or bid round appearances. To me that suggests that they have the ability to bid at other places and that the two bids that would be lost wouldn’t devastate the region. I did only skim his comment, so I preemptively apologize if I mis-construed what you were saying.
Posted from: 66.32.120.47
February 26th, 2008 22:10
the point of the bids in region argument was that obviously there are capable people in the region, but it’s harder and fewer chances for them to qual since they live in an area with not many bids so they have to travel a lot to get bids, whereas someone in the northeast or texas has probably a much easier time finding bid tournaments within a driving distance.
Posted from: 209.98.146.245
February 26th, 2008 23:31
I don’t have a particular opinion either way on Vestavia–I don’t know that a pool of 28 automatically doesn’t merit a bid, but I’d think you’d certainly have to look hard at the quality o the competition, which I can’t do since I haven’t seen any of the people who picked up bids debate, at least that I can remember.
.
That said, this discussion seems to play out the same way every time someone suggests that a tournament should have its bid dropped, and the result is usually that there’s no impetus for anything to happen and problems with the existing distribution of bids go unsolved. It’s fully understandable that people who are friends or colleagues of the Vestavia tournament would instinctively come to its defense, but I don’t really see anything being said in defense of Vestavia that couldn’t be said about any other tournament. Bidding is hard just about anywhere. Either there’s not a lot of bid opportunities (as in the south, southwest, Rockies, northwest, etc.) or there’s a ton of competition for the bids that do exist (as in NorCal, Texas and the Midwest), so cutting bids anywhere is always going to make it harder for some deserving people to go to the TOC. Most tournaments with bids have also had some very good years where they attracted lots of top competition, so historical strength isn’t that unique either. The argument that cutting the bid would make it impossible for some deserving Southerners to pick up bids is question-begging–”deservingness” presumably is a function of the strength of the field. Wade’s argument about field strength going up next year seems sort of counter-intuitive. Should Bronx have its bid cut on the assumption that once everyone sees what a hard sems bid it was no one will come next year?
.
Again, point isn’t that Vestavia should lose its bid. But in general, as some people were saying on the Stanford thread, I think it would be nice (though probably unrealistic) if bid levels were more flexible from year to year and tried to reflect what the best tournaments were likely to be *that year* as opposed to over the course of a decade or so. Losing some bids for a year and having to do a great job next year to get them back isn’t the end of the world.
Posted from: 209.181.228.22
February 27th, 2008 07:22
I agree with mangus here. If the concern is field size, taking away a bid will not help it grow. People like Michael Boyle (no offense, you’re name just happened to have already come up) and others in nearby states searching for bids see might be attracted to go to it to go bid poaching. That increases the quality of the tournament, because you add more toc quality, or near toc quality debaters to the pool. I think Christian’s point about bid’s being flexible might also be a good idea. Don’t take away the bid, just move it regionally to reward tournaments.
Posted from: 128.135.188.109
February 27th, 2008 10:01
bid poaching
…
sounded funny like we are all on a safari….hunting elephants…
Posted from: 67.165.106.132
February 27th, 2008 12:04
christian -
exactly how would this tournament “do a great job next year” on a bid-obsessed national circuit? tournaments cost time and money. if your goal is “win the toc” (or even just “get to toc”) why would you ever waste resources on something that wont help you reach that goal? this is precisely the self-fulfilling prophecy argument i made above. lower the bid level and the level of competition will inevitably go down as well. its easy to assert that tournaments should “just do better” but so far the only complaint about this tournament is the size of the pool - a problem that started when the bid level got dropped. at least when i was around, they *were* doing a great job and the bid level went down regardless. it sounds like the tournament is still run with remarkable efficiency and is one of the better-judged southern tournaments. what can they do to improve? fiat the growth of the southern debate circuit? collapse the novice and varsity pools? your suggestion that they just get better is a bunch of fluff. it works for stanford where there are a ton of procedural complaints about a tournament whose bid was recently moved UP, not down, but it doesnt work here. you can draw parallels between discussions about other tournaments, but lets face the fact that a lot of people dont know what theyre talking about. there is definitely a qualitative distinction between a tournament that cant place judges, forces debaters to forfeit rounds because its 5 hours behind, etc and a tournament thats struggling to keep numbers off after the toc committee castrated it because of bad weather one year.
Posted from: 67.165.106.132
February 27th, 2008 12:08
last sentence should read “to keep numbers *up*”, not off. screw prepositions.
Posted from: 205.188.116.76
February 27th, 2008 13:18
I agree with mangus’s analysis of the self-fulling prophecy and a bid obsessed national circuit (Being a member myself not competing at any national tournaments without a bid this year), but I think its still a reach to say that a tournament can not make itself more deserving of its bid level (I understand the complaints this year aren’t about judge quality or scheduling which are easier to fix). I think what Jon did with the Bronx tournament definitely shows that this is true. Over the past couple of years he has found ways to increase both the size and quality of the field at bronx, even without the most impressive bid level. He did it primarily through intense promoting (forced registration…. Just kidding Jon), impressive trophies, and delivering a strong judging pool year after year. Like I said above, I know nothing about the vestavia tournament so there might be specifics about the tournament I am unaware of, but even if everything Mangus is saying is correct, What is the TOC committee supposed to do? If the national circuit is bid obsessed, then people will continue to avoid the tournament and the field will stay consistent. Should the committee just keep the bids there anyway, or move them to more deserving tournaments? (I’m not saying I know a specific tournament or even a region, just a tournament they decide deserves additional bids)
Posted from: 128.192.223.134
February 27th, 2008 13:46
“But I do find it humorous that Ian Gunn, at the beginning of his comment, discusses how if we were to remove bids from vestavia (and other tournaments he says are comparable, even though I don’t know why it would have to work like that)then we’d be eliminating a region from bids and the toc.” - jkling
To clarify - the argument proposed by Michael is that a tournament the size of 28 debaters ought not to have a TOC bid. Vestavia had 28 debaters this year. Isidore Newman had 25 debaters this year. St. James had a similar number in the mid 20s, I want to say. If the argument is that we should remove bids from tournaments with small fields then the argument extends to Newman and St. James.
At that point look at the region: No bids in Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, or South Carolina. There is one semis bid tournament in North Carolina at Wake Forest and one in Kentucky at Ohio Valley. There is one octas bid tournament in Georgia at Emory. That’s three tournaments with bids in an entire region of the country (the South) and two are at the edge of the region on the Atlantic coast with one on the northern edge.
That drastically reduces the chances of bidding in that region especially with two out of three being semis bids. Why is that important?
First, travelling to other parts of the country is not always possible. Not all debaters have unlimited resources but that doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t have the chance to compete. With only three tournaments at the far end of a region that means a lot more expenses flying not only to those tournaments but also around the country to get bids and experience at good tournaments. Unless you are suggesting that there be a financial minimum that every debater needs to meet to be able to compete. In the Northeast or California or Texas you’ll have 3 tournaments within easy driving distance of your school and sometimes within your own city.
Second, It’s also a strain on debate programs which don’t always have large budgets to account for travelling.
Third, styles of debate differ in different areas of the country. And different judging pools prefer different styles. Obviously adapting is a crucial part of debate but there’s something to be said for competing in front of judges who understand and are inclined towards one’s style. The South has a distinctively traditional style of debating which it is difficult to win with elsewhere in the country. But that doesn’t mean that we should eliminate it or discourage it by making debaters only debate elsewhere and in front of other judges. Jon Gegenheimer should be enough evidence for those who question the ability and skill of traditional debaters.
I think Jason sufficiently answered why its harder for debaters in a region to bid/qual elsewhere.
It’s clear that some people still don’t understand the problem Vestavia, St. James, and Newman are experiencing (although some are sympathetic and do get it). I include all three in the same boat because its the same problem and I’ve had experience with all three and understand it. Since various events (weather in the case of both Newman and Vestavia) bids have been cut. Schools became less interested in a finals bid because octas bid tournaments are more attractive and have more chances to bid at. So people stopped coming to Southern tournaments and forgot about the competition and and quality tournaments there are down here.
NFA came down from New York and didn’t even break. There is good competition in the South. Come see it. Come to experience the good food and quality tournaments. Force TOC to give back more bids and both sides will be rewarded - more chances at bids and more attendance at tournaments.
Posted from: 71.160.56.34
February 27th, 2008 14:13
There is a lot of inertia on the TOC committee. If you want something changed or are worried about a bid being taken away and you have arguments as to why it should be kept I suggest you email a committee member.
Posted from: 68.209.198.15
February 27th, 2008 14:35
bietz, does the committee stay the same every year or do they switch it up some?
regardless, here’s the currently list, for anyone curious: http://wiki.victorybriefsdaily.com/index.php/TOC_Advisory_Committees
Posted from: 67.88.206.98
February 27th, 2008 14:44
i don’t think the wiki has been updated for awhile as I also serve on the committee, though i wouldn’t recommend emailing me about tournament bid placement unless your major criteria for changing a bid is food hospitality-in which case i will treat the request with top priority :) this grilled cheese topic is definitely worth my consideration.
Posted from: 205.188.116.76
February 27th, 2008 14:46
Mr. Gunn
After reading your last post I understand the similarities based on field size and I agree with most of your post. I just think (like I originally posted) that its hard to make the argument that you’d be eliminating a region from the TOC while using the bid numbers of competitors in late outrounds to justify the strength of the tournament. I also think that while the factors that caused the decrease in bid level might have been out of the hands of the tournament, it is still the tournament’s responsibility to regain its strength (given time). I understand that the lowering of the bid level makes that a lot more difficult and maybe that was a mistake, but there’s no way to go back in time and fix that. The tournament should either take some of the steps Jon did (re: my post above) or its risking a loss of its bids because its hard for the TOC committee to give bids to tournaments with less then 30 people and it definitely wouldn’t make sense for them to give 4 competitors out of 30 bids.
Posted from: 67.88.206.98
February 27th, 2008 14:53
in all seriousness, if you do want to advocate a change in bid placement, your best bet will be to put together the statistics of the tournament (pool sizes, states represented, bids competing, number of regional bids, responsiveness of tournament directors to improvement, etc.) and avoid using too many personal anecdotes…facts, stats, etc. are the best way for the committee to make informed decisions.
I do hope some people will be motivated to send us information since we spend an entire day going through every bid tournament and would sincerely appreciate any community input we could get-it’s tragic when we have to make decisions about bid placement and we don’t have all the information that could be available.
Posted from: 67.88.206.98
February 27th, 2008 14:55
to clarify, the examples i gave of criteria for bid tournaments are not necessarily shared by all on the committee, they are just some of the relevant factors we may use…your input on everything from regional placement to grilled cheese is welcome.
Posted from: 128.192.223.134
February 27th, 2008 17:07
I don’t think it would ever happen but I think a possible solution could be raising tournament bids on a probationary level. Perhaps giving a semis bid to a current finals bid tournament (or a quarters bid to a current semis bid tournament) for a three year period. If the tournament has not improved in quality (that is level, range, number, diversity, of competition; hospitality; efficiency; judging quality; etc.) by the third year than the probationary period is up - drop the bid back to its original level (finals or semis) for one year. If it cannot sustain its quality and continues to slip then perhaps one can talk about removing a bid.
But take Isidore Newman for example. It went had no tournament after Katrina in 2005. It was a semis bid in 2006 and had 23 ALDers(I’m pretty sure that was the number. Someone can correct me if I’m not but it’s somewhere around that number). In 2007 it was dropped to a finals bid and had 25 people. I’d say that’s improvement over a year. If a tournament drops a bid level and still maintains the level of competition and number of competitors. And people were talking about taking Newman’s bid away this year and last. And it has had two years to recover and one of its crucial recovery mechanisms (its bid) was decreased. One year is not enough to improve from a first try after a storm like Katrina. I think if we’re going to allow tournaments “in time” to recover then that needs to be more than one or two years and we can’t cripple their ability to recover by continually lowering their bid.
Posted from: 209.98.146.245
February 27th, 2008 20:23
I haven’t read everything, or even very much of anything, since my last post, so I may be missing stuff.
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That said, to respond to Michael’s point about self-fulfilling prophecies: This argument seems to me to be just as question-begging as the others. Obviously less bids = smaller field next year. That’s true of any tournament, whether or not it has bids in the squo. So, taking bids away from Vestavia has the exact same effect as denying bids to another tournament in the region. If we think there should be a couple of bids somewhere in Alabama, and we say “should we leave them at Vestavia or give them to X tournament?”, an analogous argument could be made for either answer. You say “X tournament isn’t quite good enough to merit getting Vestavia’s bids,” I say “It never will be if you don’t give it some bids in the first place.” That all presumes bids are zero-sum, but they essentially are unless you want to change the number of people at TOC. Your argument assumes that we presume strongly in favor of the existing distribution of bids, which I’m saying (or at least suggesting) we shouldn’t.
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Another problem I have with your argument is that you seem to assume that the TOC committee has some vested interest in or responsibility to help improve tournaments like Vestavia. The goal of the bid system, as I understand it, is to identify the 70 or so best debaters in the country. Maybe to a lesser extent the goal is also to improve the overall quality of debate on the national circuit by fostering the development of tournaments, but that goal shouldn’t preference some tournaments over others. If a tournament, right now, is not attracting a field competitive enough to ensure that the finalists will be among the top 100 or so debaters in the country, and there’s another tournament that could do that if it had the bids instead, then I can’t see any reason why the bids shouldn’t go to that tournament.
Posted from: 71.160.56.34
February 27th, 2008 20:32
I will say I have always felt my role on the committee included a responsibility to use our power to make recommendations to Dr. Patterson (who is the ultimate decider and can take our advice or leave it) that use TOC bids as a form of outreach. I know for a fact that the LD quality in Minnesota/Midwest improved immensely when Ms. Wycoff and myself fought to increase the bid numbers in Iowa/Minnesota.
Outreach is a good thing and I have never been shy about my stance to use TOC bids to help debate in under-served regions.
Posted from: 209.98.146.245
February 27th, 2008 21:36
OK, that makes sense. But it’s obviously not an issue if the question is whether to shuffle bids between two tournaments in the same general region.
Posted from: 66.32.120.47
February 27th, 2008 21:52
what other tournament could the Vestavia bids go to? it’s a top-notch southern tournament
Posted from: 69.206.156.49
February 27th, 2008 22:03
“NFA came down from New York and didn’t even break.” –Ian Gunn
Lol ive never felt so complemented in such a strange way
Posted from: 67.165.106.132
February 28th, 2008 00:10
christian youre still talking at a very high level of abstraction. see the argument i made above about why different arguments for/against tournaments having bids function differently. ive repeatedly defended why vestavia is one of the best tournaments in the south. if you accept bietzs claim about bids as outreach, thats a sufficient reason to not drop the bid level. maybe im missing something, but i have yet to see anyone make any structural claim about why the tournament is poorly administered or run. i could pimp my alma mater and say give the bids to st james, but there is no reason to do that whatsoever bc the folks at vhhs do such a good job (and have a MUCH larger school to accommodate a big tournament). there is a value to inertia - it helps people set travel schedules, schools get used to running major tournaments, and some schools are just well suited to running a good tournament (vestavia didnt grow to be a major quarters bid a few short years ago by sheer luck).
re: klingers arg about cruz building bronx - show me vestaviabriefsdaily.com and ill be persuaded that thats feasible. you might also recall that bronx was a major octas bid for MANY years and a fixture on the national circuit even when i was starting out as a debater. it spent only a very short time as a minor tournament, and it - like vestavia - was another victim of a reactionary bid drop.
Posted from: 67.165.106.132
February 28th, 2008 00:18
to clarify - that last arg is a reason to believe that vestavia *can* rebuild, but these things dont happen over night and require a lot of exposure thats pretty hard to get. not everyone has the debate celebrity of jon cruz.
Posted from: 75.25.130.115
February 28th, 2008 01:04
I think many problems can be solved by introducing a “champion bid” (e.g. having tournaments where the top debater gets the bid versus the top two in finals bid). This would allow having bid tournaments in remote locations, at the same time avoiding the absurdly high pool to bids ratio (I am not talking about Vestavia specifically, it actually had the ratio approximately equal to that of Stanford).
Posted from: 68.175.60.130
February 28th, 2008 07:04
“show me vestaviabriefsdaily.com and ill be persuaded that thats feasible”
I feel I should note that I offered last year to give Vestavia added “plugs” on VBD and never heard back from the interested parties. (I may have been using the wrong e-mail addresses, or perhaps not made my offer clear in said e-mails.) If you think my “debate celebrity” is key in helping tournaments, you can rest assured I’ve been happy to help advertise tournaments whenever asked…and I’ve also offered in cases where I haven’t been asked.
I would also suggest that while I was very fortunate to inherit a tournament that — as you correctly note — had only gone through a “dark ages” period for a relatively short time, the rebuilding efforts came more through personal appeals and contacts than use of VBD. (Yes, I also promoted online, though the considerable majority of said promotion was through LDDebate.org posts and IMs and e-mails.)
More importantly, though, this promotion didn’t just include appeals to a national community, but also to our local community, which had almost completely abandoned Big Bronx. I had done that a lot when first building my (now defunct) tournament and (still running) round robin at Vassar, and that was before I had national “debate celebrity.” Bottom line: getting numbers up at a tournament requires appeals not only to a national audience, but also to a local one.
Posted from: 68.175.60.130
February 28th, 2008 07:17
I think, actually, that this discussion is a good prompt for me to write a guide to promoting tournaments. (This makes a lot of sense especially coming after Bietz’s excellent guide to running tournaments.)
The other bottom line: to repeat, I’ve heard very good things about the Vestavia tournament…including this year’s tournament. It is a constant source of regret that we can’t attend. I like debate history, and Vestavia’s tournament has a lot of it. I also like quality experiences, and Vestavia’s tournament seems to have a lot of those, too.
Posted from: 68.175.60.130
February 28th, 2008 07:28
“I think many problems can be solved by introducing a “champion bid” (e.g. having tournaments where the top debater gets the bid versus the top two in finals bid). This would allow having bid tournaments in remote locations, at the same time avoiding the absurdly high pool to bids ratio (I am not talking about Vestavia specifically, it actually had the ratio approximately equal to that of Stanford).”
TRIPLE POST!
I’m confused as to how this would significantly change things. Wouldn’t this just be a difference of a single bid being awarded?
Posted from: 206.41.39.34
February 28th, 2008 07:52
Christian,
What, specifically, must a debater do to prove that he or she is a “Top 100 or so” debater in the country? I’d like to know the specific, exact criteria because your implication is that Will doesn’t deserve to be included in the Top 100 or so. As Will’s coach, I know that he’d be the first to say that he’s not in the “elite field” of national circuit debaters (those who consistently break in the Octos bid tournaments), but I know that he’d take a little offense to the suggestion that he’s not at least in the Top 125. And maybe he isn’t, but that really isn’t my point. Christian, I totally respect you (your debaters–this year and in the recent past–are some of the best debaters on the circuit; additionally, one of my debaters was in your lab at NSD last summer and he has nothing but high praise for you), but at some point your comments inspire me to want to defend one of my debaters from what seem to be indirect slights. I know that your intent isn’t to make any of the Vestavia finalists feel inadequate and shameful of their recent bid, but I think your comments could easily do that, especially considering your rep. in the debate circle and the insecurities of high schoolers.
Posted from: 67.165.106.132
February 28th, 2008 10:17
jon lets be real. i sm not contesting that other tournaments can/do get plugged through vbd. that doesnt change the fact that it all goes through you eventually. for an entire generation of debaters, you are a font of knowledge the likes of which did not exist 5 years ago. you have unprecedented influence over the hearts and minds of the youngins, and you kinda had a tendency for awhile there to mention bronx approximately every other post. im sorry if that offends you, but rebuilding bronx in a short timeframe would not have been possible if you were anonymous debate coach #1492 with no exposure.
Posted from: 167.206.203.14
February 28th, 2008 14:06
That’s fair, I guess, but ultimately, the real point I was trying to make was that was able to build some decent-sized tournaments before I was a “debate celebrity.” The bottom line is that the best way to build a tournament is through personally contacting coaches and debaters, not simply nationally, but locally as well.
Posted from: 70.111.153.144
February 28th, 2008 15:18
“I’m confused as to how this would significantly change things. Wouldn’t this just be a difference of a single bid being awarded?”
I think the point was that you could then give bids to more tournaments in a weak region that normally wouldn’t get the finals bid, giving people a better chance of qualifying in those places but not drastically increasing the size of the pool at the TOC.
Posted from: 64.12.116.76
February 28th, 2008 17:14
Personally, when discussing tournament quality, I think that the efficiency and stability of the tab room is of utmost importance (as is, as Wesley pointed out, the quality of the judges’ lounge).
I think that Michael is right that bids are very much a self fulfilling prophesy in terms of what creates a competitive tournament. In that regard though, i think that having a tournament that runs on time and has solid judging for that area is also of crucial importance. In that regard, I have only heard great things about Vestavia. I know Tara McClennan runs a tight and efficient ship and would trust her to run any tournament. These are the factors that should be important, especially considering, as Christian says, that bids generally aren’t that ‘elastic.’ If they aren’t elastic, then consistent tournaments, such as the amazing Apple Valley machine, deserve to be rewarded with high bid status.
Just my 2 cents
Posted from: 209.98.146.245
February 28th, 2008 18:42
Travis, I realized as I was typing my last post that, taken by itself, it might be read as a criticism of the Vestavia finalists. But, as I said in my first post, I haven’t seen either of them debate that I can recall, and have no idea how good they are. I also said that I’m not taking a stance on Vestavia’s bid specifically, but rather making the general point that the community should be more open to the sort of debates over where a tournament’s bid level should be set that Michael Boyle and others were trying to initiate. You guys have been having a ton of success this year, and from working with Andrew over the summer my best guess is that it’s well-deserved. I’m certainly not trying to call Will out on rep or anything–I’ve seen at least a few debaters this year (Rusty Mawn comes immediately to mind), who despite their relatively low rep I’d probably rank in the top 20 or 30 nationally. For all I know, Will could be another one of those kids. That said, I do think that any time a tournament’s bid status is called into question, there’s a tacit claim that at least some of the people who got bids there probably didn’t deserve to, so unless we want to disallow that sort of debate entirely, that’s something we have to live with. At any rate, sorry for seeming to criticize your debater in a way I didn’t intend to.
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Michael, same story. I’m not taking sides on the Vestavia debate. My arguments are at a high level of abstraction intentionally, because I’m trying to just make a general point about debates of bid allocation. Whether there’s another southern tournament that would do a better job than Vestavia if given the bids is a question best answered by people who regularly compete in that region. If there’s not, then I think that’s a legitimate argument for Vestavia keeping its bid.
Posted from: 68.11.25.35
February 28th, 2008 19:35
Christian, thanks for your kind words and for seeming to understand that I just wanted to stand up for Will. He worked really hard on the Jan/Feb topic. Again, I know you that you didn’t have any malicious intentions at all, and I actually understand the general nature of your comments.
Posted from: 68.209.198.15
February 28th, 2008 19:52
the champion bid idea seems silly. the skill disparity between final round competitors is often narrow and both had to plow through the rest of the field to get there. i’d say it’s best to give ‘em both some credit.
Posted from: 71.91.1.67
March 2nd, 2008 07:30
Although vestavia was time-efficient, with the exception of Tara McLellan and Mark Montiel, I had no good judging. Mayhap people ought bring better judging to tourn.
Posted from: 128.192.223.134
March 2nd, 2008 21:02
Christian - if the TOC is looking to identify the top 100 debaters then doesn’t that also require it to reevaluate large bid tournaments too?
There are several tournaments flooded with bids in which kids who are probably not top 100 bid/qual simply because there’s an abundance of bid tournaments in the area and great debaters can only go to so many tournaments a year (e.g. the NE, Cal, Houston/Dallas) and large bid tournaments are likely to be on conflicting dates, splitting the pool of good debaters (e.g. Harvard and Berkeley).
If we’re truly only looking to identify the top debaters (which I don’t believe) we need to take a long look at other tournaments that are giving lots of bids away also. Maybe some of those bids could be transferred to the South and that would keep the total bid number static :)
Rob - sorry if you were offended by my comment about NFA. And congrats on finals of Westchester, by the way.
And for the record (even though I’m definitely biased) I’d say Will’s in the top 70 at least. And ready to break through to that next level.
Posted from: 128.192.223.134
March 2nd, 2008 21:03
but wade - you would have gotten the champion bid at vestavia last year! lol