Re: NAC schedule info/tournament thread
Posted: Sat Jun 06, 2009 12:46 pm
Ow! My attention span!rmgeokid wrote:I mentioned NAQT to a reader, and she said "Eww. We did that one year and the questions were like a paragraph long"
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Ow! My attention span!rmgeokid wrote:I mentioned NAQT to a reader, and she said "Eww. We did that one year and the questions were like a paragraph long"
respektknux.gifsir negsalot wrote:(I edited it myself this time, freddy)
This is a good idea. Try and respectfully talk with other teams about it.rmgeokid wrote:I'm considering telling all of the somewhat good teams there (and there were a few) about the other nationals.
They probably legitimately believe as much. Of course, given that QU requires a handful of readers and NAQT requires 60+, you would hope the tournament was both more organized and better staffed. On the other hand, Mr. Gambler probably considers a quality reader to be the next Alex Trebek and/or Regis Philbin.sir negsalot wrote:"We have been going to Nationals in Chicago with the ----. Your tournament is so much better and more organized. We have now attended 3 different Nationals and none compare to the quality of your tournament organization and READERS!!!!"
--Rae Gambler, Defiance High School [name of other tournament deleted]
For what it's worth, this quote is in reference to the now-defunct ASCN tournament, not NAQT's HSNCT.jonpin wrote:They probably legitimately believe as much. Of course, given that QU requires a handful of readers and NAQT requires 60+, you would hope the tournament was both more organized and better staffed. On the other hand, Mr. Gambler probably considers a quality reader to be the next Alex Trebek and/or Regis Philbin.sir negsalot wrote:"We have been going to Nationals in Chicago with the ----. Your tournament is so much better and more organized. We have now attended 3 different Nationals and none compare to the quality of your tournament organization and READERS!!!!"
--Rae Gambler, Defiance High School [name of other tournament deleted]
Actually not the case, I'm sad to say. I see Ms. Gambler quite a bit and asked her about this one time, and she told me she was talking about NAQT. When she told me that she liked 's questions better than NAQT's too, I decided that we didn't have anything to talk about and just walked away.cdcarter wrote:For what it's worth, this quote is in reference to the now-defunct ASCN tournament, not NAQT's HSNCT.jonpin wrote:They probably legitimately believe as much. Of course, given that QU requires a handful of readers and NAQT requires 60+, you would hope the tournament was both more organized and better staffed. On the other hand, Mr. Gambler probably considers a quality reader to be the next Alex Trebek and/or Regis Philbin.sir negsalot wrote:"We have been going to Nationals in Chicago with the ----. Your tournament is so much better and more organized. We have now attended 3 different Nationals and none compare to the quality of your tournament organization and READERS!!!!"
--Rae Gambler, Defiance High School [name of other tournament deleted]
No clue. Sorry.scquizbowl wrote:Do you know what teams made the playoffs? How did Stratford (SC) do? They were in our local Quest tournament, and finished 2nd in the Social Studies section that we won.
Dag, I have been lied to, then.PaladinQB wrote:Actually not the case, I'm sad to say. I see Ms. Gambler quite a bit and asked her about this one time, and she told me she was talking about NAQT. When she told me that she liked 's questions better than NAQT's too, I decided that we didn't have anything to talk about and just walked away.cdcarter wrote:For what it's worth, this quote is in reference to the now-defunct ASCN tournament, not NAQT's HSNCT.jonpin wrote:They probably legitimately believe as much. Of course, given that QU requires a handful of readers and NAQT requires 60+, you would hope the tournament was both more organized and better staffed. On the other hand, Mr. Gambler probably considers a quality reader to be the next Alex Trebek and/or Regis Philbin.sir negsalot wrote:"We have been going to Nationals in Chicago with the ----. Your tournament is so much better and more organized. We have now attended 3 different Nationals and none compare to the quality of your tournament organization and READERS!!!!"
--Rae Gambler, Defiance High School [name of other tournament deleted]
It's sort of surprising that they chose to attend, then. I think this could be an argument for NAQT just starting to say "no, no, you aren't ready for this" to some fraction of its field if that fraction is going to be so demoralized by the questions that they'd turn to bad quizbowl. That said, I feel like this has to be the vast minority of cases and could alternatively be handled by NAQT encouraging some self-policing.fleurdelivre wrote:As much as I hate to say it, a team from El Paso in my room for Round 13 of HSNCT said the same thing. They'd been losing, mostly badly, over the course of the day, and felt exhausted at the quantity of stuff coming at them full-speed, it seemed. They were still a friendly bunch, but it seemed their experiences had pushed them to prefer a format on which they could win regularly rather than study hard to win at a format at which they would need a good deal of work to return as an upper-middling team the next year. It's not the response we want people to have to good quizbowl, but then again, an event like HSNCT is probably pretty demoralizing for about half the field, and some of them will respond this way - who wants to start their quiz bowl season with "well, we're going to put in some long, long hours and we MIGHT break the top 40 if we give it our all" when there's Plan B - go to this other, friendlier thing where we might have a chance?
Well, yeah. You're good in your immediate area (because nobody's really that good in your immediate area), and you went to one regional tournament and got completely whipped by the one genuinely competitive team in the area, but you assumed they're freaks who will probably win nationals and that you'll still be pretty decent there yourselves ... and then the questions are a notch harder, the field is ridiculously good, and what do you do? I mean, I had one KY team where, in the stretch round in an already-long-lost match against State College A, the captain started taking notes on the questions. And I have never been more proud. But I can also imagine where teams like El Paso develop a preference for a game where the field and the questions are more competitive for them.Johannes Climacus wrote:To be fair, this seemed to happen with a contingent of Kentucky teams at NSC.
There should always be a sample HSNCT packet available on our samples page.Cheynem wrote:HSNCT could possibly improve on this by making their packets a bit more accessible, like perhaps allowing one sample packet from each year's previous national championship.
You're not at all wrong. It's just hard watching teams (in your room! while you're working to give them a good quizbowl experience!) choose the other thing.bt_green_warbler wrote:More generally: we don't really see the point in turning qualified teams that have expressed interest away from HSNCT. If such a team is in fact "so demoralized by the questions that they'd turn to bad quizbowl," they would probably turn to bad quizbowl anyway if we told them they weren't ready to play at the national championship. Finally: I can't think of any useful way for us to predict in advance which 3-7 teams at HSNCT will learn new things and be motivated to improve the next year, and which will be so demoralized as to turn away from pyramidal quizbowl. At least giving them the chance to fall into the first category seems obviously worth it to me.
You and your lack of prescient technology!bt_green_warbler wrote:Finally: I can't think of any useful way for us to predict in advance which 3-7 teams at HSNCT will learn new things and be motivated to improve the next year, and which will be so demoralized as to turn away from pyramidal quizbowl. At least giving them the chance to fall into the first category seems obviously worth it to me.
jonpin wrote:They probably legitimately believe as much. Of course, given that QU requires a handful of readers and NAQT requires 60+, you would hope the tournament was both more organized and better staffed. On the other hand, Mr. Gambler probably considers a quality reader to be the next Alex Trebek and/or Regis Philbin.sir negsalot wrote:"We have been going to Nationals in Chicago with the ----. Your tournament is so much better and more organized. We have now attended 3 different Nationals and none compare to the quality of your tournament organization and READERS!!!!"
--Rae Gambler, Defiance High School [name of other tournament deleted]
I'm not at all sure how we choose which ones are the sample packet; and it would certainly be a good idea if we put up some SCT/ICT content more recent than 2003. But the HSNCT sample is the most recent packet on the whole page (the first round of the 2008 HSNCT).Cheynem wrote:(unless the sample packets are rotated?).
I'm interested to know what exactly happened with this, and which moderator it involved.Also, Trebek and Philbin don't start making fun of the accent of the region a contestant hails from (even if the contestant doesn't have it him/herself) like the people did.
The other part of the story with the El Paso schools is that El Paso High recently finished second at Chip nationals. They kind of had to find out for themselves what that translated to at HSNCT. El Paso quiz bowl is driven by a TV competition that, of course, relies on quicker questions and would probably fall under our definition of "bad quiz bowl," so they won't be entirely escaping that format anyway. The fact that there were four El Paso schools at HSNCT in the first place is progress. I'll be interested to see if they continue to come.fleurdelivre wrote:As much as I hate to say it, a team from El Paso in my room for Round 13 of HSNCT said the same thing. They'd been losing, mostly badly, over the course of the day, and felt exhausted at the quantity of stuff coming at them full-speed, it seemed. They were still a friendly bunch, but it seemed their experiences had pushed them to prefer a format on which they could win regularly rather than study hard to win at a format at which they would need a good deal of work to return as an upper-middling team the next year. It's not the response we want people to have to good quizbowl, but then again, an event like HSNCT is probably pretty demoralizing for about half the field, and some of them will respond this way - who wants to start their quiz bowl season with "well, we're going to put in some long, long hours and we MIGHT break the top 40 if we give it our all" when there's Plan B - go to this other, friendlier thing where we might have a chance?
NAQT provides TV questions. I wonder if this is a contract they should try for?etchdulac wrote:In some ways, the El Paso quiz bowl scene is superior to the rest of Texas; in others, it's inferior. But it's definitely different in every way, as you discovered.
High-Q has run for 25 years on television there, on the local PBS affiliate. They play Chip's four-quarter format and use either QU or similar questions (for TV, it's kinda what you have to do). As you can see from the bracket at http://www.kcostv.org/HQBRACKETS(1).html, it's a pretty involved thing. A higher percentage of school have quiz bowl teams in El Paso than in any other major Texas city. When Houston had a TV tournament, the field number I remember was 88 teams; now, who knows if Houston has a third of that.
Nevertheless, El Paso is limited in NAQT terms by the fact that its significant competition is Chip format. I don't see how pyramidal questions are going to prevail there as long as the TV show exists, yet you want the TV show to exist because it has kept quiz bowl in some form alive there. Just a few years ago, El Paso High was runner-up at Chip's NAC; that makes encouraging a switch even more difficult.
Still, Franklin, Chapin and EP High were at HSNCT, giving it a try. Franklin A was the bottom 5-5; Franklin B and El Paso High went 4-6; Chapin was 2-8. El Paso High had a freshman that scored 24 PPG at HSNCT.
Any feedback and advice on how TQBA should try to interact with El Paso is appreciated. I'm not exactly in an executive role here, but I'd like to hear ideas.
I wish I could provide more info on how to try to make that happen... though I don't really know how to construct an argument that NAQT should devote time to this. It's a PBS station that runs "High-Q" in El Paso, KCOS-TV (kcostv.org). They are already advertising that High-Q will return for its 26th season in September 2009.Brian Ulrich wrote:NAQT provides TV questions. I wonder if this is a contract they should try for?etchdulac wrote:In some ways, the El Paso quiz bowl scene is superior to the rest of Texas; in others, it's inferior. But it's definitely different in every way, as you discovered.
High-Q has run for 25 years on television there, on the local PBS affiliate. They play Chip's four-quarter format and use either QU or similar questions (for TV, it's kinda what you have to do). As you can see from the bracket at http://www.kcostv.org/HQBRACKETS(1).html, it's a pretty involved thing. A higher percentage of school have quiz bowl teams in El Paso than in any other major Texas city. When Houston had a TV tournament, the field number I remember was 88 teams; now, who knows if Houston has a third of that.
Nevertheless, El Paso is limited in NAQT terms by the fact that its significant competition is Chip format. I don't see how pyramidal questions are going to prevail there as long as the TV show exists, yet you want the TV show to exist because it has kept quiz bowl in some form alive there. Just a few years ago, El Paso High was runner-up at Chip's NAC; that makes encouraging a switch even more difficult.
Still, Franklin, Chapin and EP High were at HSNCT, giving it a try. Franklin A was the bottom 5-5; Franklin B and El Paso High went 4-6; Chapin was 2-8. El Paso High had a freshman that scored 24 PPG at HSNCT.
Any feedback and advice on how TQBA should try to interact with El Paso is appreciated. I'm not exactly in an executive role here, but I'd like to hear ideas.
A couple years ago, Paul Cain, the coach at Ysleta High School out in the El Paso area, talked with me about Academic Initiative providing the questions for their TV competition. He made it sound like he had some sort of role (or at least influence) in deciding questions for them, which seemed odd to me. Things didn't work out in the end, but that wouldn't be a bad place to start. I'd especially say that because I know his feelings about aren't the most positive: on at least one occasion, he has told me that he doesn't really like the NAC but has brought teams there in the most recent years simply because it's the only tournament where they have a chance to be remotely competitive. He seemed to prefer NAQT and PACE, especially in the mid 2000s when he was bringing teams to those tournaments.etchdulac wrote:I wish I could provide more info on how to try to make that happen... though I don't really know how to construct an argument that NAQT should devote time to this. It's a PBS station that runs "High-Q" in El Paso, KCOS-TV (kcostv.org). They are already advertising that High-Q will return for its 26th season in September 2009.Brian Ulrich wrote:NAQT provides TV questions. I wonder if this is a contract they should try for?
If anyone at NAQT is interested in hunting down more info on this, I'd be glad to try to help, albeit from 500 miles east of El Paso.
Paul Cain always seemed like a great guy; I have run into him off and on for the past... 15 or so years. I'll try to track down a contact for him. Ysleta had some decent teams over the years.Byko wrote:A couple years ago, Paul Cain, the coach at Ysleta High School out in the El Paso area, talked with me about Academic Initiative providing the questions for their TV competition. He made it sound like he had some sort of role (or at least influence) in deciding questions for them, which seemed odd to me. Things didn't work out in the end, but that wouldn't be a bad place to start.
The only El Paso alum I know of off the top of my head is playing for UT, but they are bound to be out there.Byko wrote:One other thing I wonder is if there are any high school quiz bowl alumni in the El Paso area who could possibly put on a tournament. Maybe some high school graduates going to UTEP? If there's at least a seed in the El Paso area, there are enough people here (both far away in the eastern half of Texas and very far away in other parts of the country but just as accessible by e-mail) that would be happy to nurture it. Last time I had heard, a certain Dwight Kidder had an entering freshman contact list--does he still do that anymore?
My bad - NAQT started supplying questions for this show last year. I've also learned that there's more going on here, but don't think it's for me to talk about. Others can if they want.etchdulac wrote:I wish I could provide more info on how to try to make that happen... though I don't really know how to construct an argument that NAQT should devote time to this. It's a PBS station that runs "High-Q" in El Paso, KCOS-TV (kcostv.org). They are already advertising that High-Q will return for its 26th season in September 2009.Brian Ulrich wrote:NAQT provides TV questions. I wonder if this is a contract they should try for?etchdulac wrote:In some ways, the El Paso quiz bowl scene is superior to the rest of Texas; in others, it's inferior. But it's definitely different in every way, as you discovered.
High-Q has run for 25 years on television there, on the local PBS affiliate. They play Chip's four-quarter format and use either QU or similar questions (for TV, it's kinda what you have to do). As you can see from the bracket at http://www.kcostv.org/HQBRACKETS(1).html, it's a pretty involved thing. A higher percentage of school have quiz bowl teams in El Paso than in any other major Texas city. When Houston had a TV tournament, the field number I remember was 88 teams; now, who knows if Houston has a third of that.
Nevertheless, El Paso is limited in NAQT terms by the fact that its significant competition is Chip format. I don't see how pyramidal questions are going to prevail there as long as the TV show exists, yet you want the TV show to exist because it has kept quiz bowl in some form alive there. Just a few years ago, El Paso High was runner-up at Chip's NAC; that makes encouraging a switch even more difficult.
Still, Franklin, Chapin and EP High were at HSNCT, giving it a try. Franklin A was the bottom 5-5; Franklin B and El Paso High went 4-6; Chapin was 2-8. El Paso High had a freshman that scored 24 PPG at HSNCT.
Any feedback and advice on how TQBA should try to interact with El Paso is appreciated. I'm not exactly in an executive role here, but I'd like to hear ideas.
If anyone at NAQT is interested in hunting down more info on this, I'd be glad to try to help, albeit from 500 miles east of El Paso.
Thanks for the update. Had no idea NAQT was already on top of this.Brian Ulrich wrote:My bad - NAQT started supplying questions for this show last year. I've also learned that there's more going on here, but don't think it's for me to talk about. Others can if they want.
No idea if it is or not - I just know I'm an editor, not someone who can assess it's coolness.etchdulac wrote:Thanks for the update. Had no idea NAQT was already on top of this.Brian Ulrich wrote:My bad - NAQT started supplying questions for this show last year. I've also learned that there's more going on here, but don't think it's for me to talk about. Others can if they want.
Obviously, I'd like to hear more, but I understand if it's not cool.
I just meant whether it's cool to elaborate or not -- trust me, if NAQT has already made significant progress in El Paso, that's very welcome news by itself, and I don't really need to dig further into it. I'd be glad to focus on regions closer to home knowing that El Paso's already in better hands.Brian Ulrich wrote:No idea if it is or not - I just know I'm an editor, not someone who can assess it's coolness.etchdulac wrote:Thanks for the update. Had no idea NAQT was already on top of this.Brian Ulrich wrote:My bad - NAQT started supplying questions for this show last year. I've also learned that there's more going on here, but don't think it's for me to talk about. Others can if they want.
Obviously, I'd like to hear more, but I understand if it's not cool.
that crappy website wrote:For longer than we can remember, we’ve had a tradition of giving away a pack of chocolate cigarettes every time a team sweeps a 60 Seconds category. They’ve become something of a cult item. In the past 12 months, three concerned adults, names unknown, have severally come to us earnestly requesting that practice be stopped. We despise cigarette smoking, but we considered that request a bit silly. Still, we tried not to be flippant with our answer, “Until someone shows us a scientific study linking chocolate cigarette use in childhood with tobacco smoking in adulthood, we’ll continue the tradition.” Well, after the DC phase of the tournament was in the books and the teams had emptied out of Reinsch Auditorium, as we were tearing down the set and cleaning up, a copy of an article, anonymously placed, was discovered: Preventative Medicine, Vol. 45, Issue 1, July 2007, Pages 26-30. “History of Childhood Candy Cigarette Use Is Associated with Tobacco Smoking by Adults.” We read the study, it makes sense, so we’re sticking by our promise: it’s goodbye chocolate cigarettes. Sorry about that, folks. We are now accepting suggestions for future alternate cult items to recognize 60 Seconds sweeps.
Caesar Rodney HS wrote:that crappy website wrote:For longer than we can remember, we’ve had a tradition of giving away a pack of chocolate cigarettes every time a team sweeps a 60 Seconds category. They’ve become something of a cult item. In the past 12 months, three concerned adults, names unknown, have severally come to us earnestly requesting that practice be stopped. We despise cigarette smoking, but we considered that request a bit silly. Still, we tried not to be flippant with our answer, “Until someone shows us a scientific study linking chocolate cigarette use in childhood with tobacco smoking in adulthood, we’ll continue the tradition.” Well, after the DC phase of the tournament was in the books and the teams had emptied out of Reinsch Auditorium, as we were tearing down the set and cleaning up, a copy of an article, anonymously placed, was discovered: Preventative Medicine, Vol. 45, Issue 1, July 2007, Pages 26-30. “History of Childhood Candy Cigarette Use Is Associated with Tobacco Smoking by Adults.” We read the study, it makes sense, so we’re sticking by our promise: it’s goodbye chocolate cigarettes. Sorry about that, folks. We are now accepting suggestions for future alternate cult items to recognize 60 Seconds sweeps.
And I can understand this line of reasoning, but I cannot understand how that can be deemed legitimate in a player or coach's mind. I would much rather finish in the top-100 at the HSNCT than in the top-10 at the NAC, otherwise I would feel cheapened. It would not be satisfying at all. But then again I guess that depends on how serious a team is about Quizbowl.fleurdelivre wrote:As much as I hate to say it, a team from El Paso in my room for Round 13 of HSNCT said the same thing. They'd been losing, mostly badly, over the course of the day, and felt exhausted at the quantity of stuff coming at them full-speed, it seemed. They were still a friendly bunch, but it seemed their experiences had pushed them to prefer a format on which they could win regularly rather than study hard to win at a format at which they would need a good deal of work to return as an upper-middling team the next year. It's not the response we want people to have to good quizbowl, but then again, an event like HSNCT is probably pretty demoralizing for about half the field, and some of them will respond this way - who wants to start their quiz bowl season with "well, we're going to put in some long, long hours and we MIGHT break the top 40 if we give it our all" when there's Plan B - go to this other, friendlier thing where we might have a chance?
You have a great attitude (and welcome to the forums!). But unfortunately a lot of school admins, school boards, and communities don't agree with you... all things equal, knowing nothing about the competitions, what sounds better: 10th place at NAC or 72nd place at HSNCT? When Comcast dropped its sponsorship of the local -event here in Delaware, all schools except us, Charter, and a few others (sometimes) stopped caring about "quizbowl" completely since they weren't recognized for their efforts anymore locally.Inkana7 wrote:And I can understand this line of reasoning, but I cannot understand how that can be deemed legitimate in a player or coach's mind. I would much rather finish in the top-100 at the HSNCT than in the top-10 at the NAC, otherwise I would feel cheapened. It would not be satisfying at all. But then again I guess that depends on how serious a team is about Quizbowl.fleurdelivre wrote:As much as I hate to say it, a team from El Paso in my room for Round 13 of HSNCT said the same thing. They'd been losing, mostly badly, over the course of the day, and felt exhausted at the quantity of stuff coming at them full-speed, it seemed. They were still a friendly bunch, but it seemed their experiences had pushed them to prefer a format on which they could win regularly rather than study hard to win at a format at which they would need a good deal of work to return as an upper-middling team the next year. It's not the response we want people to have to good quizbowl, but then again, an event like HSNCT is probably pretty demoralizing for about half the field, and some of them will respond this way - who wants to start their quiz bowl season with "well, we're going to put in some long, long hours and we MIGHT break the top 40 if we give it our all" when there's Plan B - go to this other, friendlier thing where we might have a chance?
First off, thank you.Caesar Rodney HS wrote:You have a great attitude (and welcome to the forums!). But unfortunately a lot of school admins, school boards, and communities don't agree with you... all things equal, knowing nothing about the competitions, what sounds better: 10th place at NAC or 72nd place at HSNCT? When Comcast dropped its sponsorship of the local -event here in Delaware, all schools except us, Charter, and a few others (sometimes) stopped caring about "quizbowl" completely since they weren't recognized for their efforts anymore locally.Inkana7 wrote:And I can understand this line of reasoning, but I cannot understand how that can be deemed legitimate in a player or coach's mind. I would much rather finish in the top-100 at the HSNCT than in the top-10 at the NAC, otherwise I would feel cheapened. It would not be satisfying at all. But then again I guess that depends on how serious a team is about Quizbowl.fleurdelivre wrote:As much as I hate to say it, a team from El Paso in my room for Round 13 of HSNCT said the same thing. They'd been losing, mostly badly, over the course of the day, and felt exhausted at the quantity of stuff coming at them full-speed, it seemed. They were still a friendly bunch, but it seemed their experiences had pushed them to prefer a format on which they could win regularly rather than study hard to win at a format at which they would need a good deal of work to return as an upper-middling team the next year. It's not the response we want people to have to good quizbowl, but then again, an event like HSNCT is probably pretty demoralizing for about half the field, and some of them will respond this way - who wants to start their quiz bowl season with "well, we're going to put in some long, long hours and we MIGHT break the top 40 if we give it our all" when there's Plan B - go to this other, friendlier thing where we might have a chance?
Yes, let's make fun of how middle schoolers look.First Chairman wrote:With all due respect... some of the pictures are pretty scary of some of these kids.
I didn't make fun of them. Just commenting about some of the pictures. In a generation where pictures of just about every youngster less than 10 can likely be found on the internet, I'm just commenting how it just seems awkward for me to see. Not like there aren't pictures that I think are on the QU site that aren't creepy...Captain Sinico wrote:Yes, let's make fun of how middle schoolers look.First Chairman wrote:With all due respect... some of the pictures are pretty scary of some of these kids.
I am going with two other people who I won't identify here; they can out themselves if they like. I will be recording the matches we watch and probably liveblogging.soaringeagle22 wrote:Anyway, the last stage of this thing starts tomorrow in Chicago. Is there anybody here even going? For that matter, does anyone here have any idea who might take home the "national" "championship" "prize"?