New VHSL Commissioner and State Tournament Director

[The Goffman Prophecies]

I received the following email while on vacation this week, announcing the new VHSL Commissioner and State Tournament Director:

Fred Campbell of Salem High School in Salem, Virginia is the new VHSL Scholastic Bowl Commissioner. Among his responsibilities in this capacity are question writing and rules interpretation. Campbell will also serve as state tournament director.

“Mr. Campbell has a long history of participation within and dedicated service to the VHSL,” said Director of Activities Lisa Giles. “Though we are losing a skilled coach, we are gaining a commissioner and tournament director who consistently exhibits sound judgment and fairness at the highest standard.”

Campbell is a 26-year educator who has also coached academic teams for nearly nineteen years, winning the VHSL state title in 2003.

"I have learned a great deal from my interaction with other teams and their coaches,” said Campbell . “I look forward to learning even more as I assume my new responsibilities at the state level."

In the tradition of his predecessor Shawn Pickrell, Mr. Campbell plans to continue to offer a question-writing service to districts and regions that plan to use commissioner-written questions for their tournaments. Tournament directors should contact him ([email protected]) at their earliest convenience to arrange for this service.

I don't know anything about the guy personally, and I don't think Salem has been to any circuit events before. I haven't had the opportunity to contact him yet, but what I've been told so far would seem to indicate that he at least has the intention of providing pyramidal questions. I'm going to withhold judgment until I learn more.

[Madoc]

I like this. It's good to have a Commissioner on our side of the state. We haven't transferred over to the round-robin style weekly play that a lot of districts in the east have, so this will be interesting for us.

Is he actually going to be doing question writing? I'm not sure how well he writes questions, and as we have seen in the VHSL during Mr. Pickrell's early years, it can take a while for a writer to really break into the fray of excellent pyramidal questions. Perhaps the VHSL has already screened Mr. Campbell's question writing abilities and I'm just paranoid.

Also, what happened to the deal with the HSAPQ on providing questions?

[FredCamp]

First of all, LOVE the picture, Charlie.

And I appreciate your comment re: the time it takes to become a good question writer. I had the same concern when I took the job as commissioner. I felt I needed more writers and a good editor and more time to pick up steam. I am happy to say that I now have all of these elements in place. Shawn Pickrell has agreed to serve as editor for questions written by me and my writers, and HSAPQ is still on board. I met with Shawn and HSAPQ reps last week, and we agreed that HSAPQ will provide regular season questions with input from me. The number of questions coming from me and my writers will increase as district, regional tournaments approach. I feel this approach will allow me to have a significant voice in this season's VHSL questions while maintaining a vital consistency. Things don't need to change dramatically just because there's a new commissioner, especially when it comes to the questions.

Hope this news helps to relieve some of your understandable paranoia.

[BuzzerZen]

Hey Fred, welcome to the boards. I'm glad that you've joined, and I hope you'll continue Shawn's excellent record of communicating with VHSL teams and players via the boards and listening to what they have to say. In the years that I played in VHSL Scholastic Bowl events, my sense was that the questions did gradually improve year-to-year, becoming more in line with national standards, and continuing this trajectory will be greatly beneficial to the teams playing VHSL. HSAPQ's questions have been widely commended in the community, and I hope you make good use of their expertise.

[The Goffman Prophecies]

Fred, thanks for posting and let me second Evan's welcome to the forums. Your comments here have certainly helped to abate my own skepticism, and I hope you take a few minutes to read over some of the other threads in the forum. I look forward to seeing what your team and HSAPQ can produce.

[Madoc]

First of all, LOVE the picture, Charlie.

And I appreciate your comment re: the time it takes to become a good question writer. I had the same concern when I took the job as commissioner. I felt I needed more writers and a good editor and more time to pick up steam. I am happy to say that I now have all of these elements in place. Shawn Pickrell has agreed to serve as editor for questions written by me and my writers, and HSAPQ is still on board. I met with Shawn and HSAPQ reps last week, and we agreed that HSAPQ will provide regular season questions with input from me. The number of questions coming from me and my writers will increase as district, regional tournaments approach. I feel this approach will allow me to have a significant voice in this season's VHSL questions while maintaining a vital consistency. Things don't need to change dramatically just because there's a new commissioner, especially when it comes to the questions.

Hope this news helps to relieve some of your understandable paranoia.

Fred, it looks like you have all of your ducks in a row, so to speak. I'm so glad that you were observant and thought about the question situation before quickly snatching up the job at first glance, as some people would. You've managed to combine all the good components together by still keeping Shawn in the pipeline while writing questions on your own; combining the HSAPQ into that mix gives me great hope for the quality of VHSL questions this year.

[FredCamp]

Thanks to everyone for all the good words of welcome. I still have to get a super-cool picture like Charlie's, but as I continue to get more elements in place for the upcoming season, I also hope to get to this forum more and more and continue the flow of feedback and information enjoyed by Shawn. This is a great resource for me.

BTW: Evan, I see Hampshire College in your credits, right? My nephew will soon enter his second year at Hampshire.