elitism

[Joanne Castella <castella@lclark.edu>]

In the discussion on elitism and what it takes to become one of the 
elite teams I think that one factor has been ignored by almost everyone- 
money.  It is easy to say that hard work and talent and dedication are 
enough to achieve elite status but when that status demands travelling to 
tournament that may be thousands of miles away from you, hiring 
various coaches and research assistants and graduate assitants, receiving 
enough scholarship money to blow off school because you don't have to 
shell out thousands of dollars for your education (and enough scholarship 
money to buy off debators from programs with less resources), and bringing 
computer 
technology with you to tournaments.  All of these things takes resources 
that not all schools have.  The problem is that teams from programs that 
aren't able to afford the travel that it takes to become an elite 
are automatically not afforded the same perceptual status as the schools 
that can afford it and consequently teams from those schools may loose 
close rounds on "rep".  It seems to me that this discussion of the 
"elite" is just entrenching this perception and automatically excluding 
excellent regional teams who don't have the cash to travel nationally all 
the time.

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