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Re: Trice on Nationals Qualification

Nationals is an important tournament. Important for you. Important for
others. The SMS debater has it right -- watching just doesn't make it.
Besides, they outnumber you...there are more little teams who want to go than
there are big teams who are annoyed by the need to squish bugs in the early
rounds. Because they outnumber you, they are more important.

If you say that you (big team) are more important than them (lil team) then I
refer you to my previous sermon about who really is important around here.

So, now we are down to "it is too big to host" as the only argument, since I
think mutual pref judging knocks out the other argument (lil teams bring bad
judges). This "too big to host" argument will have merit when we cannot find
a host, so I will let you know after SCA about that. If my memory serves me
correctly, finding a good site for nationals in many formats
(NFL-NDT-CEDA-Parli) is a chore, so not unique no matter the size. 

As I said to Tim, I would like you to explain to my JV teams why they cannot
go to Nationals because it would inconvenience you. Also, I believe you have
not responded to my argument that going to nationals as a young team can
uniquely energize students to make the jump to big time debate in the
following year.

How big a tournament do advocates of limiting entries want? A 60-70 team
tournament like past NDTs? A top 20 round robin? A 150 team limit? I think
this makes a difference. 

The administrative difficulties of "qualifying" also present themselves. Do
we, then, make sure to have a purposefully "bad" open division at a regional
tournament so that we could qualify teams, and the teams qualifying with a
50% record there agree to concede to teams who did not get 50% at the next
"qualifier" tournament? If necessary I will hold one because I want to take
my young teams to nationals whenever I can. Sorry, but if I can subvert a
system which I perceive as evil I will do so.

At Towson nationals I took a novice team. They got some early wins and ended
up debating KSU (Kleine & Devereaux) and Florida State (Connell & Stakelum).
Their reaction was "they beat us good, but not by that much" and it energized
them to aim at higher levels of achievement. Last year I took a novice team
and they had much the same reaction. All of these people are now hard working
varsity debaters on my squad, and some of them are researching Michigan State
cases. You have no right to deny them this experience which nationals
uniquely provides them.

You need to come up with a really good reason to keep them out, and I do not
believe that you have done so yet. Please specify for me again why they hurt
the tournament other than "hosting."

Alfred C. Snider, University of Vermont
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Archive created by Jonathan Stanton (jonathan@cs.jhu.edu)
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