"Slaughtering" in middle school quizbowl

[the return of AHAN]

OK, so the coach of the 'other' Barrington Middle School and I had an interesting conversation this morning. She was relating last night's conference match against another school that's usually pretty good. Well, it turns out, her team had a nearly 200 point lead before half. She told me that she instructed her kids to wait until the whole question was read before buzzing. She likened it to taking off the press in basketball when up by 15, or making the boys pass the ball 5 times before taking a shot in a blowout game. I was taken aback by this statement. I'll put in subs, where available, but I'm not practiced in telling my team to absolutely lay off so the other team can score. I have said, in a blowout match, to lay off for ONE question so that one buzzer-shy teammate could buzz in early and give the first answer that comes to mind. But that was for my own reasons, not for making the other team feel better about themselves.
Anyway, she more or less chided me for not doing the same with my own kids. This may have as much to do with my A team clobbering her B team in the playoffs of the Junior Wildcat as anything, but still. Has anyone ever heard of this as being a good coaching practice? (sigh)

[Down and out in Quintana Roo]

I believe something like this should take place only and exclusively in middle school quizbowl.

The mentality of 12- and 13-year-olds is substantially different than that of 16- and 17-year-olds. Very few of them have the maturity level of the best players in high school, whereby they lose a game by 400-500 points and say "wow, i really need to study harder soon, i better look up information about x, y, and z so i can beat those guys next time!" This is not an emotion that the average 7th grader can really fathom, i would imagine, in a so-called blowout game. I could see many of them being very upset, or possibly giving up.

That said, this would be extremely difficult to enforce or put into large practice. Would it be done like Little League baseball, whereby if a team is leading by 9-10 runs after the 4th or 5th inning, you call the game? Or like what Jeff said may happen if some coaches get their way, whereby the kids simply "let up" a little bit as some sort of courtesy to the other team to let them answer a few? Would a team feel "slighted" by either one of these practices? Or would they feel relieved that the score wasn't worse?

I agree that substituting in "lesser" players is probably the best idea, but you're bound to get some coaches who would rather save their team from "embarrassment," regardless of the learning potential that a good quizbowl whooping can have on you. I just don't know if the average middle schooler would have the mature enough attitude to learn from it like many high school players do.

[jonah]

Actually, in high school we were always instructed similarly for conference matches: if we were uncatchable, we were to not buzz in on the last few questions. Sometimes we weren't to buzz at all, sometimes not until after the question was completely read. So it's at least not completely unheard of at the high school level of competition.

[the return of AHAN]

Well, in IESA scholastic bowl, we have a slaughter rule, wherein the game is stopped when a team surpasses 301 points (20 swept bonuses = 600 points). We have a match this afternoon against a team we SHOULD beat, but last year my A team faltered and I wound up leaving them in for the whole game while 15 kids sat and watched. Otherwise, I'm big on subbing early and often in a blowout game. I'm HOPING I can use my D team today, but who knows?

[Tower Monarch]

The reservation I have that prevents me from recommending a slaughter rule (official or otherwise) is the effect on statistics. Quizbowl is understood through numbers, meaning coaches and players alike interpret and act upon numbers generated supposedly out of performance. I will use a recent extreme example: Maggie Walker A faced Longfellow Middle School at WJIAT in the prelims and possibly set a record ACF-format score in their 740-0 win. On one hand, I obviously wondered if that would negatively impact Longfellow's future tournament attendance, especially as the lack of a middle school circuit in that area requires them to play strong high school teams. However, if Maggie Walker "backed off" and allowed a final score of, say 500-80, I doubt any ameliorated middle school spirits and now find the score of Maggie Walker A vs TJ C meaningless, as I recall it to be similar to this adjusted Longfellow game. My point here is if quizbowl is going to continue to be statistic-driven as it is almost universally at the high school level and will likely become so at the middle school level, these "slaughter rules" can only run counter to good quizbowl practices. This applies just as well to official rules that would stop a game early, as even PPTH would only be representative of the distribution heard until the game is stopped.

[Awehrman]

I did not hear any complaints about my lifting of the slaughter rule at the Junior Wildcat. That doesn't mean there weren't any, but none were directed to me. In the blowout games that I saw, the middle school students handled themselves perfectly well. I heard a lot more "Wow, that team's really smart" and "I'm going to look that up when I get home"-type comments than I did "This sucks, I want to go home"-type comments. In the opening meeting I told coaches that we were not going to use the slaughter rule and that coaches could decide to sub out their players if the game was getting out of hand if they wanted. But I emphasized that it is not "unsportsmanlike" to put up big scores, just as it isn't wrong to try to get a high score at a math competition or on a test. The coaches that I talked to seemed to accept that. Offering up scrimmage rooms to teams that did not make or lost early in the playoffs helped, as would a more defined consolation bracket for teams to play teams of similar strengths.

[Mechanical Beasts]

When the other team's still buzzing early on questions, they pass faster. When the other team doesn't buzz for the whole question, even when they obviously could buzz early (since they did during the first half), it drives home the message of "boy, look how stupid you are, not buzzing on these parts of the question we're giving to you." It makes your defeat last longer and feel more patronizing. That said, I haven't been a middle schooler for long enough that I don't know how the median middle schooler thinks.

[Stained Diviner]

The IHSSBCA Steering Committee discussed this issue a few years ago, and there was a lot of disagreement. It's difficult to come up with any hard and fast rule, since the context often makes a big difference. The one point we did agree on is that the leading team does have to accept the fact that its behavior may be judged critically. Teams putting up big numbers often get giggly, and the losing team may think that laughter or derision directed at a bad question or bad answer given by a teammate actually is directed at them. Also, the losing team generally does not relate well to a team that gets giggly in that situation.

Some of the factors that go in to deciding whether or not to keep playing full throttle:
If your opponent has won a match that day or is likely to do so later, then they should be able to handle a blow out. If they took out their afternoon to play this one match, then you should consider allowing them to answer some questions. The best way to do that is to sub out your good players, but that is not always an option.

If your opponent is an established team, then they can handle a blow out. My team got creamed in one match this past Saturday, and nobody will or should feel bad for us. If it's a team attending their first tournament, then letting up in the second half probably is a better idea.

If you have the subs available and there is no good reason to leave them out, then you probably should sub. There sometimes is a good reason to leave your A Team in so that they can acclimate to questions they will be hearing the rest of the tournament or get a good seed. There sometimes is not a good reason. It sounds like Mr. Price follows this. I don't see a need for him to put in his D Team AND tell them not to buzz in, since those kids probably will only get to hear about five at most questions anyways.

The age of the students probably is a factor. There is also a maturity factor that is only slightly related to age--if you have a kid who doesn't control his mouth very well, then he needs to go out.

As to the last comment of Mr. Price's post--it does not necessarily follow that a coach who tells her team to go easy in a blow out will not win any titles. There are coaches who would do the same thing who have won titles.

[the return of AHAN]

As to the last comment of Mr. Price's post--it does not necessarily follow that a coach who tells her team to go easy in a blow out will not win any titles. There are coaches who would do the same thing who have won titles.

True. The differences between me and her run far deeper.

[jonah]

The IHSSBCA Steering Committee discussed this issue...and there was a lot of disagreement.

I for one am absolutely stunned to hear that such a thing could ever happen.

[David Riley]

Most people who know me know that I would like to see that hyphenated word "self-esteem" taken away from the vocabulary of education. Having said that, though, I think this problem wouldn't be as much of an issue if power matching or something similar was more commonly used at tournaments. Otherwise, if Just-Below-the-Ivy-League A plays Never-Played-A-Match-Before B in a morning pool, then what is said above makes sense, but sometimes there aren't the subs to put in. For example, I rarely take more than six people per team, because my team has said that because of other activities and responsibilities, they would prefer not to spend a day at a tournament unless they are guaranteed substantial playing time, which I think is only fair.

[at your pleasure]

Also, who's going to define what "slaughtering" constitutes? I could see people considering a 480-250 score at question 15 slaughtering, even though it might be considered reasonable to others. I do agree that this is less of a problem with power-matching or bracketed consolation rounds, since everyone is garuanteed at least some games at their level.

[cvdwightw]

There is a very practical reason for the mercy rule in baseball/softball. These games by definition have no set time period; they go on as long as they need to until someone gets the necessary outs to end the game.

Quizbowl games have a set time period. That is, they go until however many tossups are read, regardless of whether or not they're answered. Having a coach tell the team to stop buzzing, especially if that team starts screwing around or snickering when the losing team misses the tossup, can be as demoralizing to the losing team as having the team continue to buzz. A blowout is a blowout, it doesn't matter if it's 250 points or 450.

[the return of AHAN]

All right, so here's what I did today.... We split off into A and B rooms at our road, conference match today. Even after subbing in the first half, the halftime (TU15) score was 253-37. SO, instead of telling my kids to lay off on the buzzer, I told them to play the buzzer the way they were trained; don't do anything different. HOWEVER, on the bonuses, give one correct answer and give some wrong answers for the rest, but DON'T MAKE IT OBVIOUS. I thought they did an admirable job. We still hit the slaughter rule, but at least we stretched out the 2nd half by probably 5 more questions, with a memorable neg thrown in: "Jack Frost" for "Robert Frost" (and the opponent STILL couldn't rebound it, even though the mod said "Correct...oh! I mean, incorrect").

[jonah]

"Jack Frost" for "Robert Frost"

Is there some IESA rule about having to give full names, or did they just give extra information that ended up biting them?

[the return of AHAN]

"Jack Frost" for "Robert Frost"

they just gave extra information that ended up biting them.

this.

[Golden Tiger 86]

Take it with a grain of salt (it's been nine years since I played MS quizbowl), but I really think there has to be some limit on how bad you beat folks. With a caveat: if the tourney determines seeding on points scored.

For instance, there were a few tourneys I played that were round-robin. In those, if we led by more than 150 (ASCA format makes this an impossible deficit to overcome after the worksheet round), then I was out. However, at the state tourney or at another tourney with pool play+single-elimination bracket, I never came out. Other than having one team cry when we beat them 525-110, it worked out pretty well.

[BuzzerZen]

Other than having one team cry when we beat them 525-110, it worked out pretty well.

Maybe I'm a bitter, cynical sociopath, but making the other team cry sounds pretty awesome to me.

And from my own point of view, being completely blown out of the water by another team is a lot less demoralizing than having them stop trying. There have been multiple occasions where I have salvaged some dignity for myself by doing well on the last tossup of a game even when victory had been out of reach as of tossup 16.

[Matt Weiner]

Hey: Do timed games in IESA (basketball, football) have slaughter rules?

[Cheynem]

I think in middle/high school, the onus is on the coaches to get their kids on both sides in the right frame of mind to play. I blew teams out and got blown out in high school and never suffered any mental instability (THAT I KNOW OF). Coaches should instill in teams doing the blowing out that while it is okay to buzz and say correct answers, it is never okay to get mocking or seem to relish "running up the score." Coaches should instill in teams getting blown out that that these things happen, that it is part of the game, that it has nothing to do with one's self-worth, and open complaining/whining/[complaining again] is the wrong way to go about it.

mod edit: no swears in the high school section, especially the middle school section.

[Stephen Colbert]

Hey: Do timed games in IESA (basketball, football) have slaughter rules?

The IESA doesn't sponsor football. For basketball, if a team begins the fourth quarter up by 30 points (or reaches that differential during the fourth quarter), a "running clock" is utilized. Basically, the game clock won't stop unless there's a time-out, technical, or injury.

But, a mercy rule in any activity will do little to reduce slaughtering. Whether it's the running clock in basketball, ten-run rule in baseball, or 301-point limit in scholastic bowl, all effectively say, "there's no way the losing team is coming back, let's get this over with as quickly as possible". No enforceable rule has much power to actually reduce a slaughter.

Regardless of activity, granting "mercy" will always be up to the coach, and can usually be done successfully by swapping out better players for poorer ones. But, when or if mercy is given will always be a subjective decision left up to a coach. It can't and shouldn't be objectively mandated by rule.

Personally, I would never ask my players to lower their own ability level by waiting or refusing to buzz or by purposefully missing parts of a bonus. As someone who has been on both the giving and receiving ends of slaughters, I find this incredibly insulting to both teams. Mostly, I want my players only believing that one level of play exists, their very best. Any time they're in a match, I want them firing at this level. Now, if a match starts to get out of hand (especially if the match is mathematically over), I have no problem pulling out the starters. But, I still want my subs playing at the best of their ability level. If the slaughter continues, even with my worst players in, this needs to send an important message to the other team and especially their coach. The first year I coached, when we took some pretty good beatings, I always made a point of going to my players during or after the match. I would ask them to remember not only how bad it felt to lose by that much, but also and much more importantly, how amazingly talented a team they could become if they continued to attend tournaments, practice often, go up against the best competition, and fully develop their potential. I dislike the assumption that losses invariably result in horribly demoralized teams who will never ever want to play again. Sure, it sucks for any team, even the best, to lose. But loss is an important lesson. As a team, we lost. We lost a lot at first. But, we also got inspired. We were inspired because we didn't want to lose again. We were inspired because we saw how good we could become. We were inspired because we wanted to be one of those teams. We weren't just inspired to be them, we aspired to beat them.

The real problem exists because we don't have enough coaches who know how to win with grace or take a loss.

[Tegan]

Just to extend a bit from Matt's question: high school football and baseball/softball have slaughter rules. If a team has a 40 point lead in the second half, the game moves to a running clock. In baseball/softball, a certain lead stops the game after a certain number of innings.

I agree with a lot of things here. I'm not one that is big on "let's do things for self esteem". On the other hand, there are a lot of kids out there who have serious self esteem issues ..... and a lot more that have this to a lesser extent.

When I coached really good teams, and I knew they were going into a match where the team was clearly out classed: lacked experience, lacked ability, lacked any inkling of being a competitive team, I would instruct them to play to the end of the first half/score where the game was unreachable, and then stop interrupting the moderator to buzz in.

On one occasion, the team did this, the opponent still did not buzz in, and I got scolded by the opposing coach for unsportsmanlike conduct.

Later that year, we played a strong, established team (that had won a state title just a few years earlier). The game got out of hand, and I left a player in who was on a run to break a team record. After the game, I was chastised for leaving him in and running up the score. I explained the situation, and explained it to his team. This made things go over a little better.

Everyone has their own interpretation on "slaughters" .... I try and use judgment and consider not only the team, but the situation: what is the team's experience level? Is this the playoffs (if a team qualifies for the playoffs, can it really be a slaughter?)? Is there going to be an issue with qualification for the playoffs (that actually did bite me in the butt once ... I had the team lay off and missed the playoffs by ten points .... taught me a lesson).

Of course, if I played in a format that had a built in mechanism to prevent blow outs, I would be strongly tempted to not lay off, since the format has a built in mechanism to prevent that.

[Maxwell Sniffingwell]

Later that year, we played a strong, established team (that had won a state title just a few years earlier). The game got out of hand, and I left a player in who was on a run to break a team record. After the game, I was chastised for leaving him in and running up the score. I explained the situation, and explained it to his team. This made things go over a little better.

I (not the player in question) remember talking to some of the guys on that team later that year - they remembered their coach being mad but all said they would've wanted the same from their coach in the same situation.

Is there going to be an issue with qualification for the playoffs (that actually did bite me in the butt once ... I had the team lay off and missed the playoffs by ten points .... taught me a lesson).

That was definitely annoying.

Of course, if I played in a format that had a built in mechanism to prevent blow outs, I would be strongly tempted to not lay off, since the format has a built in mechanism to prevent that.

This is completely true - if we had a 301 rule in HS quizbowl, I would've tried to hit 301 as fast as possible every game. Why drag it out?

When I coached really good teams, and I knew they were going into a match where the team was clearly out classed: lacked experience, lacked ability, lacked any inkling of being a competitive team, I would instruct them to play to the end of the first half/score where the game was unreachable, and then stop interrupting the moderator to buzz in.

Really? I have no memory of this... but then again, IL questions were a bit shorter and interrupting the moderator didn't mean the same thing as it does in mACF. Honestly, I'm not sure I agree with this - I'm with Nathan in that I say sub if you can, but don't ask players to do anything other than buzz when they know the answer. Wait until you're 110% sure? Sure. But it seems like taunting to me to sit through a bunch of clues that I know after I'd been buzzing on that kind of stuff all the first half.

[Golden Tiger 86]

Other than having one team cry when we beat them 525-110, it worked out pretty well.

Maybe I'm a bitter, cynical sociopath, but making the other team cry sounds pretty awesome to me.

And from my own point of view, being completely blown out of the water by another team is a lot less demoralizing than having them stop trying. There have been multiple occasions where I have salvaged some dignity for myself by doing well on the last tossup of a game even when victory had been out of reach as of tossup 16.

That was a weird situation...generally, we had subs, but at this tourney, only four members were on the A team, so I couldn't come out. On the Alabama format, you can score 600 points in a match. Weird thing was, after the first period of 10 five-point tossups, we were only up 20-15. In the toss-up bonus round (10 tossups worth 10 points and bonuses worth up to 20 per tossup), we outscored the other team 290-25 (we got all but one question, and actually swept the other team's bonus on the question that they got), then outscored them 100-85 on the worksheet. Generally, this was the point I was out, but because we only had four players, I stayed in. I got 9 of the 10 15-point tossups (and am still mad that I missed the one I did...saying "nectar" instead of ambrosia was the food of the Greek gods). After the match was over, their captain came up to me and started crying. Then one of their parents made the comment that what we did was "uncalled for," which led to my father saying "Hell, don't blame us for what happened. If they don't want that to happen, they need to get better."

For the record, I've been on the receiving end of blowouts, too and never once did I get, or expect, mercy.

[at your pleasure]

I like the idea of substituting in, but mainly because it's a chance to give alternates more experience without having to risk them losing the game.

[Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN)]

Why not just have them play on the B team or something if the point is to give them more experience?

[David Riley]

Charlie makes a good point, but until fairly recently--at least in Illinois--coaches weren't allowed to enter more than two teams because of those same self-esteem issues. What if two, or God forbid, three, of the teams made the playoffs?



to them (the TDs in question, not the players)

[at your pleasure]

I am assuming that there is no B team(6 or fewer players), or that the B team is the one doing the slaughtering(as is entirely possible). If neither of these are true, then slaughter away.

[Golden Tiger 86]

I am assuming that there is no B team(6 or fewer players), or that the B team is the one doing the slaughtering(as is entirely possible). If neither of these are true, then slaughter away.

That was the thing...we had 12 players going, and the tourney was needing an extra team, so we split into 3 4-player teams.

Woody, one of the funnier stories I can remember happened at a tourney in Tuscaloosa my 6th grade year...we had 4 teams there, and all 4 made the playoffs, and three of the four made the semifinals. Russellville A beat Russellville C in one semi, and Russellville B beat Arab in the other semi.

[at your pleasure]

That was the thing...we had 12 players going, and the tourney was needing an extra team, so we split into 3 4-player teams.

I hate to divert discussion, but why not just register 3 teams?

[Mechanical Beasts]

That was the thing...we had 12 players going, and the tourney was needing an extra team, so we split into 3 4-player teams.

I hate to divert discussion, but why not just register 3 teams?

The reason he stated sounds like a fine one to me.