Illinois '07-'08

[Tegan]

Any players in the Chicago area would be great for reading at New Trier, Wheaton North, or the other Chicago area tournaments.

DUDE! Where's the Barrington love?? I'm always on the prowl for more moderators, especially this year when I have 38 teams (and counting).

I'm gonna need a bigger cafeteria...

I was thinking strictly high school. Given that, I would pay very good money to see some of our college students moderating at an IESA meet.

Read: there will be crying in quiz bowl!

[Maxwell Sniffingwell]

Brad - bonus part, either part 2 or 3.

[gack1224]

Does anybody know what the field is at Sterling Varsity this weekend?

[Stained Diviner]

Just to spread the word--Fenwick Varsity is cancelled.

[Alejandro]

Naperville Central Tournament Results:
1. Wheaton North
2. Wheaton Warrenville South
3. Loyola
4. Naperville North

[David Riley]

I thought Naperville Central was pretty good for a first tournament.

A couple of constructive critiques of the questions, however:

1) There were too many "blocks" of questions (e.g. tossups 7-9 all being math, or lit, or whatever). Topics should have been spread out, as this can in advertently swing the match.

2) There were too many questions with the same or similar informtion. For example, an opera bonus would be followed with an opera tossup several questons later that used the same or similar information from part of a bonus.

3) There were quite a few reverse pyramidals. For example, the question that started "Her novel The Awakening, followed by several more lines!


And....why was the afternoon seeded the way it was?

[JackGlerum]

And....why was the afternoon seeded the way it was?

I share that question as well.

[the return of AHAN]

Do tell what happened with the seeding... for those of us who attended the Mid-Suburban League pre-season tourney, where Fremd took Barrington out to the woodshed in the championship game at the frosh/soph level (285-115), while Buffalo Grove was playing Fremd for the varsity championship. But I don't know what the final of that one was...

[JackGlerum]

I've ranted too much on this forum recently... someone else explain (or defend) the seeding issue.

[Alejandro]

And....why was the afternoon seeded the way it was?

I think it had something to do with trying to prevent the #1 seed from always having the easiest match possible during the playoffs.

[crobbins52]

Yeah, so what did end up happening at the Sterling Varsity? My team went home before afternoons because we suck, so I don't know what happened.

[mlaird]

And....why was the afternoon seeded the way it was?

I think it had something to do with trying to prevent the #1 seed from always having the easiest match possible during the playoffs.

and of course consequently hosing the other seeds.

for those of you not there:
Semis=
1 v. 3
2 v. 4

And with unbalanced pool play in the morning, the afternoon seeding was affected.

IHSSBCA Ethics guides say:
E. When seeding teams for the afternoon playoffs, the strongest team in the morning rounds should be scheduled to play the weakest team (1 vs. 8 or 16) in the first round of the playoffs. To do otherwise does not give the stronger team the advantage it earned by its performance in the preliminary rounds.

Which doesn't necessarily account for this case, though it's not too far of a leap.

The argument here is that when the one seed is a buzz saw, and the three seed doesn't get a chance to make it to the finals because of it, that might be sort of unfair.

[JackGlerum]

And then there's the whole thing where WN wouldacouldashoulda lost a morning match on purpose to get a "better" seed in the afternoon.

[NCRedhawksX]

In no way did the tournament director intend to break the ethics of scholastic bowl. He had just decided to seed 1 v 3 and 2 v 4 in the semis to "mix things up." Sadly, it turned out that the 1 and 3 teams came from the same division in the morning and the 2 and 4 teams were from the other division.

Also, since we are talking about ethics, one thing that I notice while scorekeeping during our tournament was one coach clearly substituted his/her students with knowing the topics of the upcoming questions in mind. How ethical/unethical is this?

Also, other than the reverse pyramidal questions, the "blocks" of questions (which I completely blame on our randomizer program), and the similar information questions, any more critiques or concerns would be highly appreciated.

[AKKOLADE]

Also, since we are talking about ethics, one thing that I notice while scorekeeping during our tournament was one coach clearly substituted his/her students with knowing the topics of the upcoming questions in mind. How ethical/unethical is this?

If the coach was using "insider" knowledge, there's no reason to say it would not be unethical. If the coach was just calculating the likelihood of subjects based off a previously announced distribution, then that would be perfectly ethical.

[NCRedhawksX]

If the coach was using "insider" knowledge, there's no reason to say it would not be unethical. If the coach was just calculating the likelihood of subjects based off a previously announced distribution, then that would be perfectly ethical.

The situation I am referring to definetly does not fall under the latter category. For example, without being too specific, say if the coach saw that the last tossup of the match was about Russia while peeking ahead at the packet, he/she substituted in five Russian players before the final tossup just to have the greatest probability of them getting the question correct.

[Tegan]

I was not at Naperville, and have no stake in what happened. As far as mixing things up a little .... try an experiment, I'm all in favor of a little experimentation (though I would not have chosen the seeding mechanism to be changing).

However, I have to ask:

Was the seeding criteria published in advance?

If not, this is a pretty serious issue: If it was published in advance, then we can all disagree with it (I would), but at least it was a decision publicized before the final teams were decided.

If the seeding was not made public before the tournament, then this opens up the host to accusations of favoritism. Please note: I am not accusing the host of favoritism or cheating. This is one of the biggest complaints (aside from questions) that people have about Chip Beall. At times, he seems to make up unbelievable, left field decisions on the spot based on nothing that has been previously written in his rules. These then affect the outcomes of matches and tournament advancement. In Chip's case, some have accused him of just not thinking, and some have accused him of doing this for the sake of making things more dramatic.

I agree that it is questionably ethical to not give the #1 seed the traditional lowest seed path through a single elimination playoff bracket. However, I would think it a greater breach of ethics to not publicize how the playoffs run before the tournament, unless you are going to run the traditional format (and even then, you should publish it, at least as a reassurance, or as informative to new coaches.

Again, I wasn't there, I'm accusing no one of anything.

[NCRedhawksX]

Was the seeding criteria published in advance?

The seeding at naperville was published once the morning rounds were complete. On the Round 7 (round 2 of the playoffs), it said winner of game 1 (in which team one played) vs winner of game 3 (in which team 3 played) and winner of game 2 (in which team 2 played) vs winner of game 4 (in which team 4 played).

[the return of AHAN]

I would pay very good money to see some of our college students moderating at an IESA meet.

Read: there will be crying in quiz bowl!

Just how much 'good money' are we talk about?.... Did 'our college students' refer to the college students on this site? Or your former players?
If it's the latter, get out your wallet because Kociubinski, Widing, and Walton have all agreed to come to Barrington on 3/15.

[David Riley]

NC RedhawksX: re your initial post: this is why questions should not be distributed to the coaches until after the tournament, or at least after the match. I don't know who started this practice, but I know several coaches who look ahead at the questions and sub this way. Leave the questions to the moderator.

Then, re the announcement of the seeding, I agree with Tegan, announce the seeding earlier, say, during the coaches' meeting. Then, we can all gripe but at least we will know what to expect.

[the return of AHAN]

Also, since we are talking about ethics, one thing that I notice while scorekeeping during our tournament was one coach clearly substituted his/her students with knowing the topics of the upcoming questions in mind. How ethical/unethical is this?

How did the coaches know what questions were coming? If they had the questions in hand, it really puts the coach on the spot when subs are available. I was coaching at the M.S.L. pre-season tournament yesterday and the coaches are given the questions way beforehand. Not just for the tournament, but the entire season is handed out on a CD-ROM at the coaches' meeting in October! I still haven't determined the reason why we get the questions. If a dispute arises, the moderator could just call us to come forward. No one at the 7:30 AM coach's meeting could give me a good reason why the questions are handed out in advance other than that's just the way it has always been done.
ANYWAY, late in our round 2 match, I decided to sub in a player who hadn't been in yet. The sub went right after the first question and got it, to which the moderator remarked 'timely substitution.' I winced at this comment because, with the questions sitting in my lap, it sounds as though I sent him in just because he knew what canis familaris meant, when it was really just dumb luck on my part.... FWIW, 3 questions later, he responded with 'brine' for salty fluid excreted by the lacrimal glands.
The point is, anytime I'm hosting a match or playing on questions I've provided, or just in any situation where people know I've had access to the questions (as in the above), I feel like I have to worry about my kids being TOO good. This is why I like attending 'away' tournaments like Carmel and Fremd!

[mlaird]

Well, in the case of Naperville, it was easy to sub in a player based on upcoming questions, even without looking ahead. If you hear one math question, you should have called a timeout after that one was over and put in all your math people, because you knew that the next three would be math as well.

I'm also in agreement to pre-publishing the afternoon seeding type, because that way, a team can plan ahead. At Naperville there was a very clear favorite for the first seed, and no one really wanted to play them before the finals. If a team had known that the four seed would not be playing them, then they might have scored a few less points. This mixing really only hurt the chances of the lower teams, not the higher ones.

[Tegan]

ANYWAY, late in our round 2 match, I decided to sub in a player who hadn't been in yet. The sub went right after the first question and got it, to which the moderator remarked 'timely substitution.' I winced at this comment because, with the questions sitting in my lap, it sounds as though I sent him in just because he knew what canis familaris meant, when it was really just dumb luck on my part....

About four years ago, we had a similar incident at Regionals, which Maine South was hosting.

It was a nip and tuck match with (I think) Fenton, and on the last question, we had a slight lead, but it was up for grabs. I called a TO, and went over the "what ifs with my captain. I also knew we had one SS question left, and got into my SS guy's face "The next one is social studies, and we haven't had geography all day." Be ready.

The next question is geography. The mod reads "Tivoli Gardens", and he is all over it with "Copenhagen" ... a true two word interrupt. We get enough of the bonus and put the match away. The coach gets upset: How could I have possibly known what was coming??!! I explained that the SS was a given based on the locked distribution we use, and that geography was a guess, given that there hadn't been a single question. Still, given the questions had been in the school for a week, I took to opening the box only when the moderators were around so that they could back me up.

AND .... the three of my former students who are coming up to mod are great! I would pay $$$ to see some of the other folks around this board get a jr high match.

The kid leaving the room in the middle of a toss-up to answer his cell phone still ranks as one of my all top-ten Salvador Dali-esque moments in quizbowl.

[Trevkeeper]

AND .... the three of my former students who are coming up to mod are great! I would pay $$$ to see some of the other folks around this board get a jr high match.

Hey, I did moderate at the Loyola Jr. High tournament last year, you know.

[Tegan]

AND .... the three of my former students who are coming up to mod are great! I would pay $$$ to see some of the other folks around this board get a jr high match.

Hey, I did moderate at the Loyola Jr. High tournament last year, you know.

No Trevkeeper, you're OK in my book ..... I was speaking more along the lines of the older college students from out of state ..... some of them would likely end up going off on the kids. Crying would ensue.

[JackGlerum]

Forecast for Saturday Palatine, Illinois: 6 degrees high, 1 degree low

This is some kind of twisted home field advantage.

[patjm6163]

question: Why do scholastic bowl regionals/sectionals/state run into the spring sports season? Since freshman year I've seen Illinois scholastic bowl as a winter activity, yet the ihsa playoff system runs into the spring sports beginning weeks further than most of the other winter sports/activities besides the 3/4 divisions of boy's basketball.

[the return of AHAN]

??
Is someone advocating shortening the season?
Any particular reason you want to shorten things up? I can only guess it's because you want to run track and track season officially started today. For the record, track is an anomaly as all the other spring sports start Feb. 25th or later, since 100% of IHSA schools don't have a dome where baseball and softball can be played, but track can be run in the really big gyms.
So, if you want to get scholastic bowl to end after the first full week of winter break...

On a 'let's coexist with athletics' rift....I have THREE swimmers on my BHS frosh/soph team and they never come to practice since swimming started up (and I'm not one to make a kid choose). But I have introduced myself to the swim coaches and send e-mails every time we have a meet (meaning the boys would miss swimming). Have your scholastic bowl coach talk to the track coach... I'm sure they'd understand the need to miss practices for scholastic bowl meets, especially state series on March 4th.

[muehsler]

It's time I weighed in on this.
I was the one running the Naperville Central tournament.

To those who offered constructive criticism, I thank you. This was our first tournament. We will seriously consider your suggestions as they are very helpful. We acknowledge the questions did seem to come in bunches and patterns. We will fix this.
We borrowed ideas we liked from other tournaments we have been to and tried to incorporate them into ours. This is why we distributed the questions to the coaches (who were also often readers).

It must also be pointed out that there was no malicious intent towards any team. We tried to follow initial seeding patterns we saw in other matches and invitationals. The reason (and only reason) we paired 1 and 3 and 2 and 4 together was to make the final rounds more competitive.

Which brings me to the final point. Having stated there was no malicious intent towards any team as seems to be connoted previous posts, and the fact that we did our best to make the tournament as enjoyable and competitive as possible, we find the accusations of possible unethical and unfair behaviour by myself or anyone else completely unfounded. Such statements could be interpreted as libelously defamatory. I am requesting such statements stop immediately.

[Matt Weiner]

Which brings me to the final point. Having stated there was no malicious intent towards any team as seems to be connoted previous posts, and the fact that we did our best to make the tournament as enjoyable and competitive as possible, we find the accusations of possible unethical and unfair behaviour by myself or anyone else completely unfounded. Such statements could be interpreted as libelously defamatory. I am requesting such statements stop immediately.

Request not granted.

First off, this increasingly common "we appreciate all the constructive criticism" passive-aggression is going to stop on the board, at least in the high school section. If you want to specify which criticism you will listen to and which you will not, then do so in an explicit fashion--don't paint everyone with the "nonconstructive" brush just for daring to disagree with you. Second, if you do incredibly dumb things like hand out the questions at your tournament to teams who will be competing beforehand, expect to be called out for it, in broad and fully justified language, until you stop doing such incredibly dumb things.

[muehsler]

I believe I did specify which criticism I am listening to and which is helpful to us: "To those who offered constructive criticism, I thank you. This was our first tournament. We will seriously consider your suggestions as they are very helpful. We acknowledge the questions did seem to come in bunches and patterns. We will fix this.
We borrowed ideas we liked from other tournaments we have been to and tried to incorporate them into ours. This is why we distributed the questions to the coaches (who were also often readers). "

Perhaps distrubuting the questions to the coaches (who were also the moderators and readers) was unwise. Since the coaches are doing the reading, we saw no way around this problem.

The other statements about unethical behaviour, as I stated, are unfounded and unjustified. There was no unethical behaviour committed. It is those statements I would like to stop.

[AKKOLADE]

I believe I did specify which criticism I am listening to and which is helpful to us

Actually, you didn't. You said you appreciated the constructive criticism, without specifying what that was. As such, it's easy to read into your statement that you believe the only constructive criticisms are ones that agree with you.

Here's why I believe giving questions to coaches before matches can lead to unethical behavior: it gives coaches an opportunity to read the rounds and garner information that they would otherwise not have available, thereby gaining an unsportsmanlike advantage over coaches that choose to not exploit a questionable avenue for information. It's similar to handing out copies of the ACT or SAT before hand - rather than a test of knowledge in subject areas with specific topic that are randomized, it allows coaches and players to unfairly focus on the known subjects, thereby removing the randomized portion of the contest for part of the competition.

[harpersferry]

Tip to NC guy: don't fight fred and matt. It always turns out ugly.
Second tip: Use runners to deliver only one round of questions at a time to coaches if they must read in the morning. It provides a compromise to your "we need coaches to read but giving them copies of questions is bad" problem.

I think the invitation to false accusations of a winning team is further support for a nix on the hand out questions practice. Even if no unethical behavior ensues, it's better to not let any doubt even enter the equation.

[Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN)]

Heh, as if Fred's at all mean. He's like the nicest moderator on the board.

[Stained Diviner]

I have been to tournaments where the questions were handed out in advance--about a half hour before the matches started--and people did not think anything of it. If you are going to have the coaches moderate anyways, then it does not make that big a difference.

For one thing, coaches are ethical enough not to just show their teams the questions ahead of time. I know this because my team consistently beats teams that, had they made some effort to make sure they were not being seen, could have cheated. We are not good enough to beat teams that have seen the questions beforehand.

Furthermore, if a coach wants to look ahead at the questions and decide substitutions based on them, it takes less than two seconds. If the next tossup answer is Crime And Punishment, then you can put in the students that have the best chance to answer it without studying every word of the question in great detail. I don't understand what useful information you could learn by reading the questions for thirty minutes that you could not learn by reading the questions for thirty seconds.

Because Illinois has definite category distributions and the category is announced before each question, it is common for coaches to make substitutions near the end of the match based on what categories are left. This is often done without the coach having access to the questions, and nobody thinks anything of it.

This thread does not have to become a trainwreck. A team just hosted their first tournament ever. They wrote the questions themselves and put some thought into a creative format. Some of the things they did were well received and some of them were not, which surprises nobody who uses this board or has ever been to a tournament run by somebody new to hosting. They did nothing that was 'unethical' in the most basic meaning of that word.

I am reading five criticisms here.
1) The questions varied in quality, including some good ones and some bad ones. Nothing new here and nothing unethical. (I personally have not seen the questions, and my team was not there.)
2) There were runs of questions from the same category. Most people, including me, don't like that, but the matches overall were balanced and it's not the end of the world.
3) There was some repeated information in the questions. Everybody knows this is bad, but it has nothing to do with ethics and certainly is not unique to this tournament. The question writers were young and new, they have accepted the complaints regarding questions, and my guess is that their standards were still higher than the standards of most adults who write questions for Illinois teams.
4) #1 played #3 in the semifinals. This is generally a bad idea, and not announcing it beforehand also is a bad idea, and IHSSBCA includes this case in its Ethics Guidelines, but I don't think that anybody is claiming that this mistake was made because NC or its coach is unethical. The reason the guideline is included in our Ethics document is because teams that are not explicit or do things out of the ordinary often get accused of being unethical. The host usually fields a team, and people often suspect things are rearranged to help the host, but in this case the host did not field a team.
5) The questions were given out beforehand. This obviously wasn't done to gain an unfair advantage, since the host wrote the questions and didn't have a team in the field. Some people claim that such actions could lead to unethical actions by other teams, but I personally am dubious. At any rate, you had a first-time host copying a practice employed by some long-time hosts. It's fine for people to state that they dislike the practice or that they think NC made a mistake here, but let's not pretend this is a moral crisis.

When I go to a new tournament with new writers, I hope that the building is unlocked and the questions are completed before the tournament. From what I hear, NC went well beyond that standard. I hope they had a good experience, and I hope their tournament becomes annual and grows.

[AKKOLADE]

Reinstein - I'm not accusing the host of any unethical conduct when it comes to the distribution of questions. I'm saying it allows coaches to act unethically - and coaches aren't somehow 100% ethical just because they're coaches, which I can attest to after seeing and hearing of various incidents, such as coaches running tournaments on practice questions from their personal files and allowing their team to compete.

The difference between paying attention and anticipating which categories are forthcoming and using copies of questions to get that info is two fold - 1) coaches must pay attention and work for that information rather than just have it handed to them, and 2) there's a difference between knowing that a world lit q is coming up and knowing that the question's going to open with biographical information about Fitzgerald while ultimately wanting an answer of Jay Gatsby.

Also, the 30 seconds vs. 30 minutes thing is untrue, as coaches can obviously analyze the questions and put together a complete strategy better in 30 minutes.

I'll say it again, just so there's no question about it - I don't believe the tournament hosts did anything unethical, but distributing the questions before hand can lead to unethical behavior from coaches.

Heh, as if Fred's at all mean. He's like the nicest moderator on the board.

ITT I be blushing.

[JackGlerum]

Why do scholastic bowl regionals/sectionals/state run into the spring sports season?

I agree! I play lacrosse and I don't like it either.

[Stained Diviner]

I should have been more explicit. My problem was not with Fred, whom I sort of agree with.

There are three ways of handling questions, and, in order from best to worst, they are:
1) Find good moderators and not let the coaches see the questions after the tournament unless a moderator decides showing a coach a question will help settle a protest.
2) Give the questions to the coaches at the beginning of each match.
3) Give all the questions to the coaches before the match starts.

Naperville Central chose convenience over security in this case. They are not the first team to do it. I doubt it made a difference--if a coach did in fact sub in all the Russians from his bench because the last question had something to do with Russia, then it is likely the coach would have been able to use such a tactic having perused the questions for two seconds.

Back to the main narrative...
A student who just helped host his first tournament asks for feedback. Some feedback is given. One of the quotes is "I agree that it is questionably ethical..." Somehow, the coach sees the thread and in response posts a response, which happens to be his first post ever on this board. He gets criticized for using a technique which is 'increasingly common' even though it is his first post. He is then told twice that what he does is "incredibly dumb" even though he is copying something done at other tournaments that has not lead to problems in the past.

I am not a moderator on this board, and the moderators on this board generally do a very good job. I agree that the post showed some passive aggressiveness, and I agree that passive aggressiveness is not good for this board. However, the references were made to comments that are in plain view. It's not my call to make, but I wish that first-time posters were given a little more slack on this board--let them know when they do something you don't like without jumping down their throats.

[Tegan]

Statement withdrawn.

[Tegan]

Why do scholastic bowl regionals/sectionals/state run into the spring sports season?

I agree! I play lacrosse and I don't like it either.

Are you speaking again? I think you need more time in the hole.

[Tegan]

This was our first tournament.

We will seriously consider your suggestions as they are very helpful. We acknowledge the questions did seem to come in bunches and patterns. We will fix this.

It must also be pointed out that there was no malicious intent towards any team. [/quote]

I think this sums it up ...... Not too many years ago, I ran my first tournament. It was an unmitigated disaster. Lunch never showed up, some readers were far too slow and backed up the entire tournament. It was a darn good thing that this was on the first floor because I may have jumped.

A lot of first time tournaments go through growing pains. It happens I was always glad to get critique on what I did. It seems like this is the case here.

1. The new IHSSBCA document is a guideline, good in some areas, week in others (strictly in my opinion). It is brand new. Most people have not even read it yet. I think that playing that card off the bat was perhaps not teh best thing to bring up in a pubilc forum. I was very grateful that my early mistakes were brought to my personal attention, rahter than being posted for all to see. There is a world of difference between a person doing something for the first time and making mistakes, and someone who has done things repeatedly wrong, ignoring critique ( ).

2. If I had been still coaching, we would have been at Naperville this year. If I were coaching next year, I would bring my team to Naperville.

Frankly, I don't even know Coach Muehsler all that well, but I have never heard anything that would lead to me question his integrity. Until that day, I will side with innocent mistake vs. "unethical".

[Tegan]

question: Why do scholastic bowl regionals/sectionals/state run into the spring sports season? Since freshman year I've seen Illinois scholastic bowl as a winter activity, yet the ihsa playoff system runs into the spring sports beginning weeks further than most of the other winter sports/activities besides the 3/4 divisions of boy's basketball.

The IHSA used to run Scholastic bowl as a spring sport, with the finals in May. Sometime after that got changed, for IHSA convenience, the finals wer moved to coincide in space and time with boy's basketball. This has never been good for Scholastic Bowl, except for lengthening the season, which isn't wholly bad.

Technically speaking, while practice for spring sports begins early, the spring sports competitive season does not begin until after the last winter finals ends.

We have had coaches complain about athlete "X" not showing up for early practicies because sport W is still in competition, Our AD came down hard and clear: coaches cannot hold this agasint athletes, and attempts to do same are grounds for dismissal from coaching.

The complaints stopped pretty fast.

[David Riley]

Since I was one of the ones who started this noeud des viperes--sorry I couldn't resist--I do want to clarify my main point.

Sometime ago a coach started distributing questions to the coaches just before a match. I was not accusing Mr. Muehsler of anything, but I have known some coaches--not in attendance at this tournament--who use this as a strategy to sustitute players EVERY CHANCE THEY GET, and if the host has not limited the nunmber of timeouts, and if the moderator isn't conscious of it, this becomes a problem.

Again, my general recommendation is that the moderator should be the only one who sees the questions during the match. If there's a dispute, then s/he can consult the coaches as needed.

[Matt Weiner]

I want to clarify what the problem with that post was, that caused me to step in via my official capacity. I sent this e-mail earlier today in response to an inquiry about it:

The board cannot work if people threaten to sue each other for discussing tournaments. That was what I jumped on the coach for...I didn't have anything to say about the issue of handing out questions until then, and it appeared to be under containment by the Illinois people. The biggest problem on the board is when people start making broad attacks and then playing the victim...they start throwing around labels like "nonconstructive criticism" and "libelously defamatory," and then label me or other people as bullies for responding in kind. I find that sort of behavior extremely disingenuous and repulsive, and as one of the administrators of the board I have a responsibility to nip it in the bud, as well as to make it vociferously clear that threatening to sue people for criticizing your tournament is 100% unacceptable.

The strongly implied threat of legal action was what I was responding to; if I didn't make that clear or I muddled my message by reintroducing the point about handing out questions, that's my fault. But we just can't have people throwing fits of that sort, or it will put a freeze on all discussion and attempts to get people to improve.

Do we get it, now? If you want to use bad logic to defend yourself, then that will be evaluated on an individual basis, with your level of experience in quizbowl and on this board taken into account. But if you want to accuse people of libel or other illegal/actionable activity without basis, you will be made to stop, period. EXPLICIT OR IMPLIED THREATS TO ARREST OR SUE PEOPLE FOR THINGS THEY SAY ON THIS BOARD ARE NOT ALLOWED.

[Stained Diviner]

Thanks for clarifying, Matt. I now see your point better.

[patjm6163]

??
Is someone advocating shortening the season?
Any particular reason you want to shorten things up? I can only guess it's because you want to run track and track season officially started today.

No, its for volleyball and season starts first week in march. .when regionals for scholastic bowl are held and i just never understood why the IHSA blends in seasons- -. our varsity v-ball coach understands though especially since his brother is a varsity scholastic bowl coach at another school.

[mlaird]

...and i just never understood why the IHSA blends in seasons- -.

Protip:
It's because the IHSA doesn't really care about Scholastic Bowl that much.

[Stained Diviner]

Mr. Laird, there are much better examples to prove that IHSA doesn't care about Scholastic Bowl.

The options for IHSA are:
A) Shorten all the seasons
B) Hold all the Championships for a given season on the same weekend
C) Have some sports begin practice while other sports finish their Championships

A is obviously bad, B is logistically impossible, and so C is what they do.

[Stained Diviner]

Masonic Sectional Assignments are up

[Tegan]

Masonic Sectional Assignments are up

Clearly in so obviously weak a regional, and with their incredible experience, I would put my money on Our Lady of Tepeyac to win this.

I think they go in even money to be shut out in both matches. Talk about a guppy in a tank of pirahana!