Tim, Brian, and I returned to Wisconsin late Monday afternoon and completed what was a long weekend and a fitting end to our debate season. As sad as it is to say, the three of us probably will never be together in the same way we have been for the last three years. But its not that sad, after all, we will all be living in Madison next year, including Jeremy. (Meaning I’m obligated to take them out to at least one party/football game/night drinking on Campus/my house.)
While not acknowledging the end of the debate season thoughts, I reflected on the tournament that was the “Tournament of Champions†for 2005. I came up with several observations that impressed me as a first-time attendee.
First, I was really impressed with the intensity of the tournament. I don’t think that I’ve ever seen debaters care that much about their first round, much less a round at 8 in the morning. On top of that, merely qualifying to the tournament really is an accomplishment. I know everyone says this, but I don’t think that I understood how much that means until this weekend: every round was an elimination round at a National Circuit Tournament. This means that in order to clear you have to win five-elimination rounds and beat five deserving debaters, while the competition gets harder by the virtue of power pairing. This leaves little room for error and even less room to makeup for those errors. And everyone really wants to do well, its their last tournament and its widely considered the most competitive and prestigious tournament in the country.
All of these factors make the tournament very intense in real ways. The difference between Brian winning his first two rounds and losing his first two was a hairline difference (literally about ten sentences total). All of the rounds are close.
Second, I was very impressed by how much the kids knew each other and how genuinely friendly everyone was. Friendliness is a good thing and so are friends in the activity. However, it sucks to be from Wisconsin. Because neither Tim nor I work at a debate camp (I did, but I doubt I ever will again) very few people know who we are (more people know Tim than me, as he’s traveled more and he’s worked with Appleton East). On top of that Brian only went to camp for LD once and that was at Yale, which isn’t a mainstream camp. Yale is nowhere near as popular as VBI or NDF.
And then there’s the VBI affect. I know of more people because I read VBI pretty frequently, and their comments, pictures, and names are all posted there in interviews and results. Accordingly too, few people know who we are.
So we were pretty much forced to hangout with each other. Not like this is a bad thing, we do very much enjoy each others company and we did have an awesomely fun time, but it would have been nice to meet more people (forgive my unnecessary superfluous terms, but the sentence needed some stress to avoid sounding lame). And there’s not really anything we can do about it. It’s just a generic side affect of Madison being the best city in the world and Wisconsin being infinitely better than Illinois and Minnesota (I kid, of course).
To conclude, my first trip to the TOC was awesome. While I had competed at both CFL and NFL, and will most likely return to both tournaments this year for the first time since I competed, coaching at the TOC was an honor. When I first started with Memorial, I never thought that we could ever get to the TOC. And then somewhere after the first year I believed it was possible. It was a joy to see Brian progress that far and to be able to go with him to the only “nationals†that I had never been to. I feel like I’ve grown and matured through all this. As I reflect on the TOC of 2005 and the last three years I can say that I am happy for working with Memorial Debate and I won’t forget a single tournament, practice, email or online conversation.
In tune with those sentiments, I need to give a lot of thanks to Tim for letting me be his assistant coach. Thank you.
Alright, I’ve stopped reflecting and begun rambling. This was a good post conceptually….. Terrible execution.
