10 Things I Like and Don’t Like (John Scoggin)
This post is my first of the “10 Things” series, and I’m excited to share my thoughts… Without further ado, here are ten random musings, featuring the first half of the 2017-2018 season.
Click here for the last edition of this series from the 2017 Apple Valley tournament.
1: West coast, best coast?
I started coaching on the west coast in 2008, and I have to admit it warms my heart to see how far the region has come. Powerhouse programs like Harvard-Westlake have had persistent success, but even more impressive are schools like Immaculate Heart and Marlborough, that have been staples at west coast tournaments for years and are now having their best seasons yet. Then you have Kamiak coming out of nowhere and making a strong impression on the circuit. If you come from outside our region and have the opportunity to come to one of our tournaments, I highly recommend it.
2: Long docs, too long
I have seen more 1NC docs that include a ‘4th off if I get to it’ than ever before. You should time your off-case positions and you should make purposeful choices about the content of the 1NC. Too many people are treating their 1NC as if it’s merely for dumping as many arguments as possible out there. Plan exactly how many offs you want to read and answer the case! Please!
3: Women in debate
I know we’ve mentioned this several times on the site in the past year, but it merits repeating. Having an older sister who was a successful debater and a younger sister now ascending in the activity, it brings me great joy to see the sustained success that women are having in debate this year. There is still a lot of work to be done, but I think it’s fair to take some time to celebrate the amazing results women have achieved this year.
4: The trains run on time
Everyone is different, and some people have no problem prepping until 2 in the morning and waking up 4 hours later to get ready. But if you are like me, you like to sleep 8 hours. I have been exceptionally impressed that no tournament I have been to this year has really gotten off the rails and robbed me of my precious 8 hours of sleep, and I know a lot of you out there are happy too! I think online balloting and doc sharing have made things a lot faster in recent seasons, and I hope this trend continues.
5: Friendly coin flips and disclosure practices
No matter where you stand on these issues, it seems like tournament rules are starting to get more standardized and people in general are being much nicer at coin flips. Don’t get me wrong, I have still seen issues where someone wants us to disclose a new aff or something outside traditional norms, but on the whole, I think people have been much more pleasant during these exchanges, something that I am really grateful for.
6: Util/Trutil
While I understand that my judging tendencies make me prone to judging these debates, I have been super excited about the high quality util debates I have seen this year. Some of the more impressive squads on the util debate I’ve seen this year deserve shout-outs: Immaculate Heart, Harker, Winston Churchill, Canyon Crest, and Northwood.
7: Big time hospitality
Hospitality has improved at a number of the tournaments I have been to this season. If you have never been to the St. Mark’s tournament in October, you are really missing out. The meals and snacks easily rank atop my informal tournament power rankings on the Scog food blog. Stay tuned for a full food metagame breakdown.
8: Decide rounds faster, please
While I applaud judges being rigorous in their evaluation of rounds, some of the decision times this year have been straight up ridiculous. I am finding myself making 10 minutes decisions and then waiting another 15-20 minutes just to learn that the panel decision was a 3-0! Sometimes less is more. The speeches in total are 26 minutes. If you are taking longer than that to make a decision, you lose the essential proximity to the words said in the debate to make the best decision. Get the evidence during the debate on the e-mail chain, don’t screw around on Facebook for 5 minutes before you start deciding. It’s not hard – let’s make decision times reasonable again.
9: Bad kritiks in the meta
Good Ks are good. Bad Ks are extremely unpleasant to listen to, especially when you can’t explain your link or your alt. I understand that kritiks are a big part of the metagame right now, and an essential tool to respond to structural violence affs or framework-y affs that you simply don’t have good prep against. That said, if I don’t understand what your K says in the initial speech, I’m not going to vote for it, plain and simple.
Maybe some judges like bad Ks. Maybe some judges want to hear a completely non-responsive Edelman K read at 400 WPM. Maybe some judges are masochists. Most aren’t, so let’s cool it on the nonsense high theory.
10: A challenger approaches?
Bob wrote in the TOC Edition of 10 Things that Ari Azbel from Lake Highland could tie or break Jonas LeBarillec’s 21 career bid total, the most of anyone in the past seven seasons. Now, halfway through the season, it looks like a different bid record is in jeopardy: Steven Adler’s 13 bids in one season (2011).
Danielle currently has 8 bids from Loyola, Greenhill, Presentation, St. Marks, USC/Damus, Glenbrooks, Alta, and CPS. The fact that she went to Alta and Damus, two more regional tournaments, could be a good indication that she’s aiming to maximize her bid opportunities this season. Tournaments in the West/Southwest region remaining this season include UPS, Peninsula, Harvard-Westlake, Golden Desert, Stanford, Cal Berkeley, and USC. UPS is a bit far for a regional tournament, but she could add Emory to that list, which is a historically strong circuit invitational. That means six to eight possible bid opportunities without venturing too far out of the region, and given her consistency so far, bidding at all of them is certainly within the realm of possibility.
At the very least, Danielle will probably attend the three tournaments in Los Angeles and Cal Berkeley. If she bids at those, she will have 12, tying Catherine Tarsney (2010) and surpassing Jonas Le Barillec (2017), Raffi Piliero (2017), Varun Bhave (2015), and Bob Overing (2012), who each had 11, the most since Adler.
