This brings up an interesting point: what *are* the standards for qualifying as a high school team? I've seen a decent number of registration forms, and none of them have required proof of school sanction, so theoretically there is nothing stopping anyone except verification from the school admins (and when I was back in high school, although we were "officially" a club, they only knew whether went somewhere as far as where the check was cut to).jrbarry wrote:"and we have since talked to tournament officials there {Brookwood} and they said there was no dress-code."
I am the Brookwood Tournament Director and no one from MCHS talked to me.
Ms. Sadler at Hardee High is someone I have known for years and I put great stock in what her judgments are concerning quiz bowl. She has brought teams to the BISB for many years and has never complained about any person or team's behavior.
I was not privy to seeing any inappropriate dress at this year's BISB. And appropriate dress is expected at all our tournaments at Brookwood. That means dress that would pass OUR dress code. 2 readers DID mention to me that one team had a captain that was dressed maybe too provocatively. They didn't press it, so I didn't research it on that day.
I will say that I do not intend to allow any teams in our tournakment in the fuiture that are not officially sanctioned teams. I feel like I was hoodwinked by someone or some folks in Martin County, FL as, while I was super busy with tournament prep the week of the BISB, I received several communications from more than one MC person regarding dropping out, refubnding money, and adding a team to take MCHS's place. Had I thought the situation through rationally, I would NOT have allowed the team that did participate in the BISB representing Martin County to play this year.
I am unhappy about the situation.
The second question: just what is "school sanction"? Sanction as a school club? It is fairly simple to be a school club and theoretically if two clubs overlapped, they could both claim to be "official" from the same school. Or is sanction when the administration signs off on a specific team going to a specific competition, making it more like an athletic type deal (which also brings the role of how much role an administration should have in team selection)?
Finally, the third question to ask is, if a school sanction is unnecessary, what sort of "common relationship" should a team have to be classified as a team? At a lot of competitions in college (although I should note looser competitions), the only "common relationship" is that the four people be living humans (and some don't even require that as long as they pay their registration fees!). However, since high school implies eligiblity and actually being in secondary education, this is an interesting question.
I'm just throwing all of this out; I personally haven't thought out any answers yet. I'm sure this might just start some interesting commentary...
Patrick King