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Re: Dickman on topic length & release date

On Thu, 15 Feb 1996, Michael R. Dickman wrote:

> 2.  Release date of August 15.  No problem as far as I'm concerned but I 
> do have some problems with earlier tournaments.
> a.  Don't we already have the longest schedule in intercollegiate 
> competition?  Enough already!! 
> b.  a longer season starting sooner would just give richer squads another 
> advantage.  More tournaments = more experience on a topic = competitive 
> edge.  In fact, from the point of view of one dof from a small school one 
> topic a year with an earlier release date but no earlier tournaments 
> would make us (this particular small school) more likely to compete at 
> higher level than we do at this time.  Any response?

Michael,

This is not intended as a flame and probably doesn't really answer the
question you are really asking, but I don't agree with this line of 
reasoning.  Two reasons:

First: tournaments are not the places where we lose the competitive edge,
they are the places where we catch up (speaking just for Berkeley here).
Our lack of coaching makes the feedback and learning at tournaments very
precious.  The more tournaments, the better (for us).

Second: where does curtailing tournaments to preserve competition stop?
According to your equation (more tournaments = more competitive 
inequality), nowhere.  There is no line.  Each tournament is linearly
bad.  Dangerous extrapolation, eh?

A closing remark: this general desire to protect small schools carries
with it two dangerous assumptions which I think are not at all given:

1)  Small schools may be safely categorized as needing help to compete 
(by 'safely' I mean both 'accurately' and 'without bad side effects').

2)  Small schools are helped the most by lowering expectations and
sheltering them from competition.

I disagree with both of the above statements.  Do you?

zack
Cal Debate
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