Kings College Rocks

So I will just quickly list the reason that the King's College Debate Tournament was the best ever:

1) I wasn't coaching anyone-I know this isn't unique to this tournament, I have even been at other tournaments where I was not coaching, but it is a crucial element in the best tournament ever. I am not saying that there is anything wrong with coaching or anything, just that it makes tournaments much more enjoyable when you have fewer responsibilities.

2) The Packers didn't play on Sunday-again, I am just trying to get all the random non-unique things out of here first. Obviously there are other weeks that the Pack was not on Sunday, but since the worst thing about debate is missing the Pack and that is followed up only by missing other football games, this is a biggie.

3) College Debate pays SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much better than high school debate. Katie and I were offered 25 bucks a debate to judge in PA, which is a phat deal. We paid for our hotel (2 nights) ate a couple of solid dinners (TGIFriday's tasty new Garlic Chicken (which really is very garlicy) and one night where we ordered like 2 of everything on Wendy's dollar menu, which I always think is fun), had free lunches which were pretty solid (pizza and subs, I mean, it was standard debate tournament food, but it was free, tasty, fairly plentiful, and convenient), used about 1 and a half tanks of gas and stuff and still ended up with a 200 dollar profit or so. I mean, this fucking rocked, it rocked hard.

4) The kids were for the most part, hella cool about everything. You know how high school kids in good debates get at intense tournaments. These kids were the exact opposite the whole fucking time. I had heard that college kids at tournaments like Wake and shit were even more intense, fucking staying up all night to cut cards, being so intense and argumentative and all this shit all the time. The people debating at Kings weren't racing through the buildings, they weren't fighting with each other or yelling or anything. They weren't lazy bastards either mind you, they cared about their debates and they prepped and thought of arguments and everything, but no one freaked out if they couldn't find the newest piece of repetitive evidence. If people said anything about my decision, it was to ask what I thought of this or this. It was always asked in a spirit of genuine inquiry and I never felt that I was being undermined or attacked. Admittedly, I know more about debate and shit in general then most of these kids and there was never a situation under which the decision was in question, but that tends to be true in high school, where I often felt like people were at least attempting to intimidate me. These kids liked to debate, they tried hard, they didn't freak out if they lost, or blow an eight-ball of coke after they won to keep them up for the next round. Most of them were pretty smart and I don' think any of them were thinking of all the horribly stressful shit we read about on edebate (the college debate list-serv) all the time.

5) The coaches were hella cool about everything. Again, I never got shook down and I was never questioned. I mean fuck, these people didn't know me at fucking all. I had never, never, met anyone there before. None of these people had even heard of me (well, maybe a couple of Katie's friends had, but for the most part no one did) and the assumption was not "who the fuck is this moron." How cool is that, it really works out. There was not nearly as much overcoaching as you will find elsewhere which played into the next factor.

6) Shit ran on time. I don't mean the way you say that all tournaments essentially run on time because you assume in advance that they won't run on time. This tournament ran way on fucking time. There were three debates on Friday and Katie and I were at Friday's eating garlic by like 10:30. Considering we also had to check into our hotel and find the place, I think that was pretty good. On Saturday we started at 9, pretty good since many tournaments have the first debate at 8. There were three debates and any necessary double-octas scheduled for that day. Rounds 4-5, the first two on Saturday, were lag powered. If anyone happens to be reading this who is not in debate, lag-powered means a slightly less accurate competition, but saves about 40 minutes per round or so. Hence, we were done with round 5 by around 1 in the afternoon and eating our free lunch. Now, back when I was coaching I would have been pissed about that. I mean, that hurts some people, it technically does decrease the quality of competition, but sitting there, pleased about things in general made me wonder what was really damaged by lag powering one fucking debate. Lots of things weren't hurt, for instance, everyone's ability to have some sort of a Saturday night to themselves and their friends, even if those Saturday nights are spent in Wilkes-Barre. These kids were still debating, they were still learning, the activity was every fucking bit as educational in that round 5 as it would be otherwise. We judged one more round that day, got off doubles since there were only like two debates, and were at the hotel to watch Trading Spaces by like 5 or 5:30. Damn! That is off the fucking hook. We were home on Saturday of a debate tournament that cleared to fucking octos by 5:30 on Saturday! The next morning we judged octos and came home. We could have stayed later, but they said we could go. We took our cash and enjoyed a stunning ride back up and through the river valley.

I will make a couple concessions that probably deserved to be mentioned. I am getting old. By this of course I mean that I am and was myself guilty of a lot of things I just expresssed dislike for. I am willing to admit my mistakes. Ultimately I am quickly realizing that the burnout that I have felt so strongly since Northwestern two years ago was largely based in the way I viewed the activity and the way that those widely held views impacted the running of tournaments. It was way too fucking much, I couldn't handle that and would never go back to it. Tournaments like this however, are totally different.

Finally, I will concede that the quality of competition declines slightly. Maybe its more than slightly, maybe not, I don't know how to judge such a thing. These kids did not know their theory debates as well and there were some people who forgot to put offense on the disad. I never would have expected that I would have to tell varsity debaters some of the things I told them that weekend, but they weren't stupid. Most of those kids were hella smart and it was obvious that they were getting alot out of this activity. The real difference in the "quality" of the debates at Kings and the "quality" of the debates at the Kentucky Round Robin (which, by the way, deserves some shout outs, both to Scotty P, the winner, and my former debater, Ms. Margaret Berthiaume, who is off to a hella good season start) is not the intelligence of the kids or their knowledge of issues, but rather the inbred knowledge of debate and the practice involved in skillful execution. I don't deny the value of those things, but they are pretty small in comparison to what I see the benefits to be.

I may post something about this to the Minnesota Debate Forum at some point, since people there always seem interested in discussing the nature of the activity and its obscure drive to self-destruction. Regardless, I will most likely be back in Wilkes-Barre, mad props to the folks from Kings.

Peace,

MB-K