It’s taken me a whole day to realize how happy I am about last weekend’s debate tournament. I guess that’s mostly because there were a number of depressing moments during the tournament. My policy kids not doing as well as they could have, Bill’s kids not getting judges who take the activity as seriously as they do, and general frustrations that come with running a state debate tournament.
My policy kids had a rough draw their first two rounds, having to debate SPASH TW and Wausau West LM, both good and hard working teams. We lost both rounds. That made the rest of our tournament difficult. The next round we drew the negative. That normally is our preferred side, especially on this topic, but we had to debate in front of the only C-C judge in a field of A-A judges. And we lost particularly because the judge did not understand the strategy that we were using. A ballot line of “At the point that the aff wins T, the CP just becomes advantages to the plan, so I vote aff” does not bode well for the judge’s competence. So we lost, ending our tournament. We later lost another round that we should have won in front of the biggest surprise of the tournament: that a coach of 11 years could render decisions so silly as to demean the virtue of our activity.
I also felt particularly bad for Bill Batterman – Marquette’s director of debate and forensics. He spent (and still is spending) an enormous amount of time working with his top team. And through preliminary rounds that work appeared to be paying off, emerging as the top seed and best speaker of the tournament. However, the executive committee voted earlier to fill all of the spots in elimination rounds, instead of allowing only teams with more wins than losses to advance. This placed 3-3 Neenah as the 8th seed, against the 1st seed of Marquette. Marquette ended up losing on what appeared to be at least one questionable ballot. Bill took the lost rather hard, and I can understand that reaction. I’ve been at a place where I had coached the top seed of the tournament, put a significant amount with the debaters, and only to see them lose. That feeling is unlike anything else, and is particularly something that I hope not to experience again. To see a friend experience that is not pleasant either.
But at the same time, I am really happy for Noah. To finally coach an LD State Champion is an experience that I don’t think I will forget in a while. Although Noah’s win probably does not feel as meaningful as Brian’s would have (had he actually won the round), it does feel good to know that I do know what I am doing with LD. Hearing Noah finally not be frustrated after more than a month of things not going our way (Hortonville, Glenbrooks, and Appleton East) was well worth it. And it came at the right time too! After all he went through last year, he can now lay claim to being one of the best Sheboygan North debaters of all time. (It’s a short list). This may very well be Sheboygan North’s first Varsity debate championship since the 1991 Sheboygan North MR Championship in Policy Debate. Even mine (WFCA LD) is a bit tainted, because of the events involved and that it came after the first WDCA LD State championship. Particularly it was fun to have Noah win, where (same location) I felt I should have six years ago.
