Season Sweepstakes – Update #4
This update includes Fall Champs. As always, all errors in tabulation, spelling, etc. are entirely my own. Let me know of any mistakes and I’ll fix them right away.
Reminder: We will have at least 3 LD Tournaments this semester (Pt. Loma, LD Champs, Spring Champs) which means that all debaters and teams will need 3 tournaments to remain qualified on these rankings after the LD Champs.
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Comments
A couple thoughts:
UoP has only come to 1 so cal tournament, when they go to Loma plus one they should count, too. Am I right, or are they out-out? The minimum tournament entry is to maintain a sense of fair(er) play. I could have gone to 1 tournament and gone 4-0 then retired. Harder to do that multiple tournaments in a row. This also affects UNR, neither went to Fall Champs. They will both be at Loma and can come to Spring Champs so they should be covered.
Instead of limiting out Novice/Junior maybe make the tournament minimum 3 instead of 2. This means that a person who breaks twice in novice has to go to junior for at least one tournament. Mike already did that because of the % limits or however that works. Either way I am not to worried about it; though it would be nice to show Admin something shiny.
Lastly, I thought that LD Champs was a Community College oriented tournament and 4 years weren’t quite invited. If this is the case, I was talking with a couple of people about an idea I ‘barrowed’ from someone else (maybe starting with the letter “M”) about having a RR/TOC style event for people that are higher ranked to prepare them for deep outs at Nats. It could be oriented towards NFA or PRP by the powers that be, but lets be honest, there is a difference in LD where you compete in it and it is not as productive to practice one style if you are competing in another. NFA is not like PRP from what I have heard from LDers.
Yes, UoP/UNR need to attend two tournaments in the spring to qualify.
I haven’t heard anything about LD Champs being limited to CC’s. Regardless, I won’t be in attendance as the Cal Invitational is that same weekend and I am committed to judging. (In fact, unless the date is changed I doubt I will attend next year either).
But, just from my brief experience so far, you’re right Mat, the CC’s I’ve gone up against have all been more comms oriented and less flow-centric (with the exception of SJ Delta because Andrew Thomas and Co. are certified ballerz).
I actually debated the *entire* senior OCC team at Fall Champs (all four of them – no lie!). They were all similar in that they spoke very pleasantly – and that’s a legit compliment, not a backhanded one – but they obviously lacked exposure to the types of arguments I was running and the clip at which I was delivering them. Those weren’t very satisfactory rounds for me because I wasn’t challenged in ways that would improve my ability on the flow, and I’m sure the OCC team probably felt likewise after their encounters with me because my speaking style closer resembles a very loud, violent freight train than a comms delivery.
I’d definitely be down for a fast-style socal round robin. We can do what one of the midwest tournaments does which is to say that “the judging parameters laid out by NFA will not be adhered to” or something along those lines. Not sure how an invitation or qualification process would work though.
It would be very easy to divide the yearlong individual sweepstakes by division, but Danny’s original post argued against that. I will defer to the group’s decision, but know that the data I’ve collected from the cume sheets allows that separation to be made. That would also mean an extra trophy for someone, which has to be purchased.
As to the LD Champs, CBU has gone the last few years. The confusion may be that the Tabor tournament is for PRP eligible competitors, and novices from 4-year institutions. CBU has attended that tournament as well, but obviously only with our novices. It is my understanding that there are no such restrictions with the Sunday LD tournament.
As to a “rules of NFA LD will not be adhered to” tournament, I think that would be useful for competitors who are preparing for the NFA national tournament, but we should not expect support for such a tournament from most of the LD schools in So. Cal., since NFA is not heavily attended by So. Cal. schools. CBU has rarely attended NFA, and so while some of my students might be attracted to the novelty, it’s not something I would be interested in supporting in any serious way (hosting, running, drumming up support, etc.).
Honestly, I think the easiest thing to do would be to pair off (even as hybrid teams between schools) and start attending NDT/CEDA tournaments next year. There are no speed/communication requirements, and it may fit your desired style of debate. As a former CEDA debater myself, I can say that it is a very fulfilling and educational activity. It seems odd to me to ignore an activity that follows the debate practices you desire, to instead have a tournament that explicit changes the rules of an activity that does not follow the debate practices you desire.
But, that’s just me. 
The compromise that was worked out was that both of the school based awards would only be given to schools in Southern California – in order to promote the event to schools in Southern California. However, the top “SoCal-LD” debater award would be eligible to any debater from any school who earned the points in Southern California.
Further, debating in each division is still hard. Just because someone earns their wins in novice or junior doesn’t make those wins any less difficult for that person. I don’t support breaking out the award per division – let’s just recognize who does the best in their debates. We can hash out changes over the summer. I’m thinking that this summer we’ll establish an executive board or something for SoCal-LD of four people – two coaches and two students (one from a 2yr school and one from a 4yr school) – we’ll see…
Regarding the division between a comm oriented versus flow oriented approach, I’m dismayed that more judges are not adhering to the rules regarding delivery. Further, I’m dismayed that a comm oriented approach is seen as distinct from a flow oriented approach which is simply not true. I’m sure the OCC team was good on the flow as well.
I will guarantee all of you that if we go down the path of dropping the comm oriented rules in Southern California NFA-LD will not exist long in Southern California – schools will drop their support of NFA-LD. The fact that we have 9 tournaments in Southern California this season is the product of persuading directors that NFA-LD will reward a comm oriented approach. If you enjoy doing one-on-one policy debate please stick to the comm oriented side on your delivery – else we’re likely to lose the event completely.
Okay. I can see where Danny is getting at with the top debater award. Let’s just retain the status quo and talk about it during the offseason.
Alrightly. Now for the other discussion.
1. Mike – I would absolutely love to do NDT-CEDA debate but without the serious financial resources needed to be competitive, it’s not going to happen for me at UCLA. I’ve already talked to my coach about doing this, we both agreed it was not worth it. In a perfect world all forensics teams would have lots of money to travel and hire coaches to cut cards but this is not the case unfortunately. And yes, it is odd that I am in the “wrong activity” for my style per se, but this is out of necessity and not convenience.
2. Comm versus flow. Okay. This was inevitably going to come up. Are comm and flow exclusive. No. One can speak eloquently and follow the flow if one chooses to. It’s not that the OCC team didn’t do line-by-line debate – they did. But their delivery was stronger than the arguments they delivered. I’m going to stop myself there.
3. Delivery style. My opinion is basically, each to their own. Look, I talk like a freight train and still got great speaks at fall champs mostly on the strength of my arguments. It’s not that I don’t talk persuasively – it’s that my idea of talking persuasively is talking with forcefully in a very efficient (read: brisk) manner. Is this a comm delivery? No. Does it work in front of progressive judges who care first and foremost about argument quality? Yes. Would I shift my delivery to a comm-style if I needed to? Sure. If someone like Danny or Sydne or any other like-minded judge were in the back, then I would adjust my speaking style and argument choice to adapt to that. After all, “the judge is god.” (Such a true quote).
4. Judges not following rules. Danny, the reason why most judges do not follow the paradigm listed in the rules is that most judges do not want to be told that their preferred paradigm is somehow irrelevant and must be discarded in favor of something that strikes the casual observer as being somewhat non-”progressive” in the debate sense. Is there a solution to this? Not really, barring some sort of crackdown (i.e. “sanctioning” judges who don’t comply with rules). Do that and many judges would hesitate or even refuse to participate. And I wouldn’t blame them.
5. There is absolutely no reason why the activity cannot favor both a comm-based and a flow-based approach. I’ve been successful doing it my way. Alex Lamascus has been very successful doing it in a comm-friendly way. Mat Swanson has been great at bridging the two. There’s no reason why they’re mutually exclusive.
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Looks good. UCLA in first place in Lincoln. Always liked having a target on my back.
I still think we should consider giving out “Top LD debater” awards for novice/JV/senior instead of lumping everyone together. Maybe it’s just counter-intuitive to me that a novice would be ranked higher than Mat Swanson. I don’t know. Not a really big deal.