Why Hardin is Right

Last week the Capital Times ran a story about how Tom Hardin, the head coach of forensics and drama at James Madison Memorial High School, plans to retire from coaching at the end of the season. There was even a follow up blog by the Capitol Times reacting to the discussion of the story.

As an assistant coach for Memorial forensics and debate program for several years, I read the paper and the comments in the online version with a more critical eye than others. It’s worthwhile to point out that I am extremely biased on this issue. Tom Hardin and Tim Scheffler taught me how to be a speech and debate coach and gave me a job that supported me throughout my post secondary education.

My responses to the news and comments are as follows:

First, this is not new news. Hardin has made this position clear three years ago. Tom did so with the hope that Memorial would be motivated to find a replacement for him. The school has made no such actions.

Second, Tom’s decision is in part self-interested; not entirely “protest” motivated as the article makes things appear. How many individuals would be willing to work from 6am to 9pm with high school students? Now factor in that you have less institutional support and less resources per participant than sports programs, and are paid 4% for your hard efforts. How many people would willingly accept such an offer? Few people would. Tom has done it for years and has acquire state and national awards – including six state championship teams. To require/ask that Tom self-sacrifice for the good of the community is ridiculous. If Madison is serious about providing the level of education that he does, then it should support it at the level of other activities.

What would that mean? A number of things. For starters, he could use a larger budget for the forensics team. Because of the size of Memorial’s team, the dollars provided by the district barely scratch the surface of paying for all of the tournaments that Memorial attends. Most of the funds for Toms efforts are coordinated by Tom. Do you see the Head Basketball or Football coach devoting time to such instances? No.

The principal’s comment that Madison Memorial is supportive of the program because they read things during the announcements is a silly argument. Debate, Drama, and Forensics require time and effort. Every moment spent fundraising is a moment lost teaching. Every moment spent struggling with school staff to provide resources to the team is a moment lost teaching. Do we expect other teachers to do the same? Hardly.

Paid assistant coaches are another missing resource for Memorial. Not only does Tom have to work with 4% less pay than other programs in the building, he has no other staff to support him. Sports can rely on paid assistants, not only for their varsity teams – but head and assistant coaches for their JV and Freshman teams. At a minimum – this is six paid teachers. Forensics has one head coach and no paid assistants. Tom has been very successful at recruiting adult members of the community to come in and basically volunteer their time to help cover all of the time required to get kids to improve. It is unreasonable to assume that this is his job – when no other activity has this burden placed upon his position. If there were other paid people devoted to forensics and drama, Tom would have a much easier time.

Third, Tom’s decision is strategic. He’s been so far unpersuasive with the school and the school district. He knows the only way to improve the situation is to motivate students and their parents to pressure the school district. If he’s not there, it’s likely that the program won’t exist. Students and parents do not like this outcome and will pressure the school district to do something. Hopefully they are successful.

Fourth, there’s a huge disparity in the district about the level of competition in forensics. Hardin and his team devotes a substantial amount to time and effort. Madison West is developing a team along the same lines. East and La Follette do not compete. At all. Sure they have a team. But their team consists of no more than ten students who attend at best three to four tournaments. I’ve written about this before: (Memorial Forensics Honored, Others Don’t Compete) and (High School Debate Lacking in Madison). Memorial on the other hand, has 100+ students and attends 12+ tournaments this year. Tom’s decision to hang things puts a spot light on this issue. If the district is serious about the benefits of this activity, then they should not allow this kind of disparity to exist. In fact, this disparity in effort almost justifies Memorial High School’s and many commenters “whatever” – approach to speech (and also debate).

In reality, the school district/school sees Tom as someone who is going beyond the call of duty and they are more than happy to have six state championship – but they could easily do without them – because only half of the school district even competes in the activity. The effort that Hardin provides illustrates what is required to have successful arts education. Administrators at the other high schools should encourage their staff to put forth similar efforts – and those efforts should be fully funded and supported. Until then, Tom’s quote is true for Madison – the arts are simply a disposable benefit – rather than a core element of a successful high school education.

H1N1 Vaccine

I got my H1N1 Vaccine yesterday. To be honest, I was quite nervous. I haven’t been able to figure out why. I don’t really have a fear of needles. Or of nurses. Well. Maybe of Nurse Ratchet. The public health nurses I had were kind and courteous and even went so far to ensure that I wouldn’t have an allergic reaction to the shot.

There is a lot of conflicting information about the H1N1 Vaccine that exists. There are abundant reports and rumors concerning potential side effects of the shot. But, I found this piece to have a pretty valid point – disease control is better than not and medicine has significantly advanced.

In thinking about the vaccine, I was reminded of the debate evidence that we discussed during the November-December LD topic (Resolved: Public health concerns justify compulsory immunizations). One of my favorite affirmative arguments on the topic was that the public misperceives the risks involved in getting vaccinated (their fears of the vaccine are overstated and the public underestimates the benefits of a vaccine, in part due to overblown negative reports in the media). The argument continued that because of this misperception, people make poor decisions about their health.

I am glad that I listened to public health authorities on the importance of getting an H1N1 vaccine. I won’t make the case why you should be vaccinated against H1N1… But I will link you to a website.

My concern is probably more acute than others. I don’t work with kids on a daily basis, but at debate tournaments I spend a considerable amount of time with high school students (who sometimes have a less than great level of hygiene). One of those kids could have easily have have infected me with H1N1, if and when the virus returns. And the complications for young people (check out this episode of 60 minutes), have been life-threatening.

Its not every day where we have an LD topic that is philosophical, about current affairs, and potentially affecting the people debating and listening to debates. Similarly, it’s not every day where the arguments on a debate topic become your internal thoughts about what to do. I applaud the coaches who chose this topic – because after debating the topic and after getting a flu shot, I’m still thinking and writing about the implications and arguments of the topic.

And that is what high school debate is supposed to do.

The Big North?

In December Barry Alvarez mentioned his support for the Big Ten expanding to twelve teams. (See ESPN’s coverage of the comment). The benefits to the Big Ten of expanding are obvious: 1) a 12th team would increase the viewership and revenue generated by the Big Ten Network, 2) a 12th team would create a conference championship football game that would generate a ton of revenue for the conference, and 3) it’s much easier to schedule with 12 teams than it is to with 11.

Since Alvarez’s comment, there has been widespread speculation about who the potential 12th school could be. In all likelihood, the most of the potential teams are from the Big East – since Big East football is pretty much a joke.The list of teams who could potentially fit the bill have included: Notre Dame, Missouri, Pittsburgh, Syracuse, and Rutgers.

Monday – the UW twitter world was – well – atwitter with the rumor that Pittsburgh was the lead candidate to join the Big Ten. See the rumors here and here.

Those rumors have been disputed. And we’re all back to wondering who the expansion will include.

However, there has been a good discussion about what a Big Ten expansion could mean for the world of college football. (Academic like discussion here, linked from the New York Times). While most people have focused on the football or basketball implications – the biggest benefit to a University about changing conferences is towards its academic mission.

As the link articles discuss, the members of the Big Ten are also members of two important post-secondary institutions – the Committee on Institutional Cooperation and the Association of American Universities. These affiliations are significant in that they strengthen the Big Ten’s academic reputation of large, research oriented institutions. Members of the Big Ten have been called “Public Ivies” for “successfully competing with the Ivy League schools in academic rigor;” among other benefits associated with the Ivy League. Institutions looking to join the Big Ten will consider it an opportunity to enhance their academic prestige. Having said that, the Big Ten will more than likely look for a university that fits the profile of most of the conference: flagship institutions, research universities, and more than likely a public university.

Having said all of that – Pitt definitely fits the profile of a Big Ten University and would be a smart choice, in a world where Notre Dame refuses to join. They used to have a huge rivalry with Penn State (it hasn’t been played in awhile) in football. Pitt would enhance the basketball quality of the Big Ten immediately. Pitt is also considered a “public Ivy,” is a state-related institution, a research university, and is a member of the Association of American Universities. Pitt’s football program is annually among the best in the Big East and could stand to gain substantially from a move to the Big Ten. Perhaps they’ll be invited, we don’t really know because the Big Ten is still studying the issue.

One university that has been left out of the discussion – and I’m not sure why – is Iowa State. Granted Iowa State does not really “enhance” the Big Ten in football or basketball – because ISU is far from being the class of the Big 12 in either football or basketball. And perhaps that is the reason, but ISU fits the profile of a Big Ten University better than Big East universities looking to get a leg up: it’s a public, land-grant, space-grant, research institution. And it has rivalries against Iowa already. (And I think they play Minnesota with some regularity. Either that or Minnesota just gets whipped by them every once and awhile.)

There’s also been some discussion of including Texas. Wikipedia says that Texas tried to join the Big Ten in the early 90’s but failed for various reasons. I’m not sure how true that is. Such an addition would really make the Big Ten THE Super Conference. Texas fits the profile: state sponsored research institution and academically rigorous. And I can guess that Texas doesn’t like being academically affiliated with the likes of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State (although Kansas and Nebraska are pretty decent company).

I suppose the best reason to not include Texas is that Big Ten teams might never win again in the super conference… Oh. And Travel.

And that I have no idea what the new conference name would be: The Big 12? The Other Big 12? If the Big Ten picks a school in the Midwest, we could just be call the “The Big North.” But Texas wouldn’t really be North… I’d say that alone is a good reason to pick up a team in the near Midwest. What good is creating a new super conference if you can’t come up with a decent name for it? (Note: Super Conference is likely to be unappealing to other universities).

Groundhogs

Sun Prairie’s groundhog, Jimmy, did not see his shadow.

Puxtawney Phil, in Pennslyvannia, however did.

So which is accurate? Jimmy has an 80% accuracy rating. Phil has 61% accuracy rating. I like those odds. Jimmy lives in Wisconsin – so he must know the local weather better.

Also, Bucky Badger is a second cousin of Jimmy and is vouching for his reliability.

And – as long as we are talking groundhogs – I think there’s something wrong with the logical operators in the groundhog prediction matrix.

If s/he sees his/her shadow (is there a female weather predicting groundhog?), then there is six more weeks of winter. If s/he fails to see his/her shadow, then should there not be six more weeks of winter? Instead, it’s an early spring – which – in Wisconsin is only six more weeks of winter.

Side note: (the two logical extensions of the premise If P, then Q are: P happens, so Q must also happen and Q did not happen, so P must not have occurred.) Logic, baby!

In any event, I hope the groundhog is right. This is the first time in 26 years of living in this state that I’m honestly sick of winter. Can it be warm yet?

Late Night War Defies Reason

Let me see if I understand this Late Night War situation correctly. Leno’s show had poor ratings that the NBC affiliates demanded something else. NBC’s solution to the problem was not to just simply cancel Leno’s show and replace it with something that would satisfy the affiliates, but rather to keep Leno’s (awful) show, bump the Tonight Show back, and bump Late Night back… (And then presumably cancel Last Call with Carson Daly – but no one seems to be talking about that).

In the interest of full disclosure, I like Conan and Letterman, much more than Leno. (I also like the Daily Show and the Colbert Report much better than Leno for what it’s worth). But NBC’s decision, seems to defy rational decision making.

If some one is running a poor show and causing a loss of advertising revenue for your affiliates, wouldn’t it be best to cut ties with that person? Instead, NBC clings to some warped vision of the past that they can at least regain viewers over Letterman.

This possibility is so remote – it’s like they’re attempting to win the lottery. Not only are they going to lose “Conan – only viewers,” but if Leno wasn’t damaged goods before, he almost certainly is now. So what NBC is doing is to come up with a solution to a problem, that is just going to be another problem. If FOX does end up picking up Conan at some point, there’s a substantial risk that Conan would out-perform Leno, putting NBC in at best third place and at worst, fifth – behind the Daily Show/Colbert Report. NBC was so afraid of this outcome in 2004 that it gave Conan his contract that awarded him the Tonight Show last fall. So it seems silly to dismiss this risk.

The re-installation of Leno seems so far removed from what is best for the network (assuming the network is interested in gaining viewers), that it makes me scratch my head at why NBC is doing it. But maybe defying reason is what makes up show biz.

Sunday Night Football

Texts between me and Alissa last night:

me:

Sunday night football just showed the Cowboys players giving gifts to kids at Chlidrens Dallas this week. What’s the Epic code for a lame gift from Romo?

Alissa:

V66.6 _ : gift of lame nature from mediocre quarterback

Airing of Grivances

Today is Festivus. Alissa and I begin our insane holiday travels today and it seems appropriate that I celebrate the first in the four-day holiday series (Festivus, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, the Day After Christmas: Christmas the Sequel.)

In the immortal words of Frank Costanza,

The tradition of Festivus begins with the Airing of Grievances. I got a lot of problems with you people! And now, you’re gonna hear about it!

The following folks have disappointed me this year:

• The Madison Metropolitan Area School District for again failing to support speech and debate in the area. I have written about this before. See the posts here and here. JMM won two state championships in debate a couple weeks ago, and they will likely be without a program next year.
• Governor Doyle for rolling back the 2% wage adjustment and implementing a furlough. I realize that action was required to balance the budget, but couldn’t there have been some other way? I really didn’t want a functional 5.5% pay cut when I just started working for the state.
• Debate coaches who can’t read emails/follow directions/complain about things unnecessarily. I have been one of the most communicative leaders for the WDCA in years. Every change/departure from the past has been deliberated at WDCA meetings and announced on our website and sent to you in a email. What more do you want me to do? Would it be so hard to have some amount of personal responsibility/professionalism to the task of coaching? Or at least be appreciative of the work that other people do on your behalf?
• Brett Favre. He’s a Viking. Enough said.
• Jim Hendry. What in your mind were you thinking about adding Milton Bradley? I’ll readily agree that getting rid of him was a good idea – but for Carlos Sliva?

I’m sure there’s more, but these are the ones that stick out in my mind. Despite declaring that I’m returning to regular blog posting a week ago, I’m temporarily reversing that declaration because of the holidays. When I come back, I’ll share some thoughts about the Edgewater project, the Health Care Bill, and the Overture Center.

Where to Celebrate?

It’s after 5 pm on Friday. It’s officially the weekend. In particular, the weekend before Christmas. My fiancée and I will be braving the stores this weekend to finish our Christmas shopping. To celebrate the weekend and to get in the spirit of the season, I’m rocking (as much as holiday music aside from Trans Siberian Orchestra can be called rocking) out to the Christmas Station on Pandora.

If you haven’t heard it yet, the Pandora Christmas Station is awesome. And you can take the information that Pandora spits out and tweak it, if you don’t like it. Maria Carey not your thing? Give her the thumbs down and you won’t hear her any more this holiday season. I’d share a link, but it’s difficult to link to the Christmas Genre station. I recommend starting there and making adjustments.

To start our weekend, Alissa and I are celebrating the fact that she no longer has to travel for work. The problem is that I’m in charge of finding a place, and I am having difficulty choosing one place.

A couple of years ago I made a counter-intuitive new year’s resolution. After realizing that Madison has more per capita restaurants than New York City, I wanted to try many of the places that I have not yet experienced. And so, I made a resolution to eat more – not less. It’s a great resolution – there’s no way to measure if it was achieved. Some effort is all that is required. Add to that the great local writing about the Madison culinary scene (see: Eating Madison A to Z, The Isthmus Food Columns, Dane 101 Food), and there are plenty of resources to guide one.

The problem is that there are frequently many restaurants that I want to visit. The Haze, Papa Bear’s BBQ, Quivey’s Grove, Nadia’s, the Cabana Room, Liliana’s and the Kennedy Mannor Dinning Room are a few of the ones on my current list. And I’m not sure if any meet the occasion.

I think we’ll just end up returning to Harvest, but I’m still not sure. Suggestions anyone?

Rebooting and a List of Stuff (again)

I really should be used to rebooting blogging, but I switched over to an Apple about three years ago. The old Windows solution is less meaningful than it once was. But, here I go again. And yes, I did have to start with a stupid word play. It’s best to get it out of my system now.

I’m returning to an old school use of my blog. A published list of stuff to get me.

I’ll be honest. Shopping for me is hard. If I really want something, I tend to go out and get it. Especially if it’s something I need/want and at a reasonable price. Those are things that are usually good gift recommendations. Consider for example the French Press and Packer Sweatshirts I just bought myself last month. Perfect gift ideas, ruined!

And if there’s something that I want and don’t have – it’s probably too expensive for me to suggest as a gift (a new MacBook Pro, for example). Or worse yet, expensive and completely unnecessary.

Sure. There are things I’ll always want: Badger Basketball tickets, Badger Football Tickets, Packer Tickets, Cubs baseball Tickets – (Pretty much tickets to see any one of my favorite sports teams. If the previous list didn’t make that clear, those are the Badgers, Packers, and Cubs.) But some people want change, not more of the same.

I tried in all honesty to develop a list of gift ideas for me. Ultimately I failed to put the required effort into the project to really think about the affordable, tangible products I wanted. Instead, I preferred to think about the shinny things that are out of a reasonable person’s Christmas price range.

That is, until I remembered that I had been developing a list of books on Amazon. There are tons of books on subjects I’m interested that I would like to have. (Whether or not I have the time to read them, is another story). And whenever I hear about a book that I’d either like to buy or rent from a library (yes – people still do that), I put it on my public Amazon list.

Without further ado, family. Here’s a link to my public Amazon list.

I understand that Christmas is late. But – if my memory is correct – and I hope it is, my birthday is in February and the items here are not likely to change.

Flawed BCS on Track to be Exposed

Nothing ever goes according to plan in college football. However, this year if things stay the way the are (a big if) – the plan seeks to expose the BCS for the sham that is. And hopefully, we can next year we can move to some type of a playoff system.

Take a look at the current BCS standings:

1. Florida
2. Texas
3. Alabama
4. Iowa
5. Cincinnati
6. TCU
7. Boise State
8. Oregon
9. LSU
10. Georgia Tech
11. Penn State
12. USC
13. Pittsburgh
14. Utah

The all important aspect of the BCS selection is the difference between automatic and at-large selections. Thus far, the BCS bowls have chosen BCS schools for their at-large teams over options from other conferences. In other years, this may seem reasonable, but this year it will seem like a major travesty when a potentially undefeated TCU or Boise State is excluded from a BCS bowl – while multiple teams from the Big Ten, SEC, and Pac-10 are chosen with worse records.

There are five BCS bowls: the National Champion Game, The Rose Bowl, The Sugar Bowl, The Orange Bowl, and The Fiesta Bowl. The six BCS conference champs automatically qualify. Given where things stand now, Florida/Alabama, Iowa, Oregon, Georgia Tech, Texas, and Cincinnati would all receive automatic bids. Either Boise State or TCU can get an automatic birth if they are in the top 12 or in the top 16 and ranked above a BCS conference champion. Right now both TCU and Boise State are eligible to get an automatic birth, but only one can receive it – TCU has the inside lead, but Boise State could move ahead. That means based on the above standings that the available at-large teams would be:

1. Florida/Alabama loser
2. Boise State/TCU loser (they don’t play, but only one can get an automatic birth)
3. Penn State/Ohio State winner
4. USC
5. Pittsburgh
6. Houston (if it can move up high enough)

LSU is excluded from this list for the time being because the SEC is limited to only two teams in the BCS. I think that it goes without saying that the Sugar Bowl will take the loser of the Florida/Alabama SEC title game (provided it happens). That means that only two of the teams mentioned above are going to get an at-large selection. It seems highly unlikely to me that both USC and the Penn State/Ohio State winner will be excluded from a BCS bowl, simply because their fans travel well. If that’s the case, there’s no place left for Boise State. And that would completely suck because would beat one of the teams playing in Pasadena (albeit for the Rose Bowl) and have gone undefeated and still gotten excluded from the BCS.

Is it possible that the individual bowl selection committees might pick Boise State over Penn State/Ohio State or USC? Sure. But it’s unlikely because you’re attempting to increase people and revenue to your event. USC/Ohio State/Penn State have large and rapid fan bases. It’s even more unlikely because if the Fiesta loses Texas to the national championship game, given the current standings, there isn’t another Big 12 team in the top for them to select – so they’ll be stuck with making two at large selections. I could be wrong about that, though.

But I think my point is clear: if things stay as they are, then the BCS will be exposed as a system that’s designed to reward the BCS’s schools’ pocketbooks at the expense of true competition.

Think about college basketball for a second. Let’s say in a given season, Memphis went undefeated but wasn’t awarded a number 1 or number 2 seed. Most of us would think that would be outrageous – they may not deserve a number one overall – or even a 1 seed – but they should at least get a 2 seed.

This season in college football seems poised to make that example a reality. An undefeated team, ranked in the top ten in the country won’t get to play in one of the five best bowls and ten other teams will. This will be so far removed from being fair, it won’t even be funny. And for Boise State’s sake, I hope things don’t go according to plan.