Basic outline of a proposal that I would be in favor of:

• School's should be afforded the opportunity to travel to any tournament in a state that is contiguous to Minnesota + 4 other traveling tournaments during the "regular season." The "regular season" should be defined as either a) invitationals that are held from the months of September-March OR b) invitationals which do not require qualification standards to be met.
• Any tournament during the "post-season" which requires qualification should be exempt from counting toward the 4 tournaments, as they should be used as rewards for successful debating. (Ex. NDCA Championships, TOC, NFLs, CFLs). Each of these tournaments, as far as I know, requires a qualification process to some extent.

A few anecdotes.

1) Regarding Doobs' concern, I think the wording should use "school" and not "competitor." I think it establishes a much more clear standard of whether or not a school has attended their allotment of tournaments and helps balance the coach burnout problem. Otherwise, it is possible for a school with many competitors to go to as many tournaments as they would like.
2) The self-imposed MDTA restriction would in fact lessen the amount of travel being done by programs. Currently, there are programs attend tournaments in contigious states, plus 5-7 tournaments in other states. (Note: Wayzata is one of these programs).
3) I think it is important to keep post-season tournaments distinct from invitationals. These tournaments should be used as rewards for strong debating during the season.
4) Perhaps 4 is an arbitrary number in itself. Feel free to propose different numbers and rationales behind those numbers.

The two bullet points listed above are obviously a rough sketch of what I think the rules should look like (and yes, I did steal most of my ideas from Pete). The actual rules will need to be more detailed, but I think it provides a strong starting point for discussion. Ultimately, I think these rules balance the intent of the MSHSL restrictions for sports with the educational objectives of debate as an activity.

 EDIT: Amanda brought up a good question to me about the ability to enforce the proposal. Two things:

a) The MSHSL adopts the MDTA's resolution, in which case there would be sanctions involving Sections/State. I think this is an effective sanction, because teams that are funded by their districts probably could not afford to miss out on Sections and State. To some extent, that's all that the administrations care about.

b) It's simply a MDTA resolution, in which case there are no sanctions (unless there is a way to instill them?), but rather people agree to follow a community norm.

Calmer than you are, Doobs. 

Yeah.  I think everyone's acting very calm.  Really.  Unless your point is that we shouldn't rush to a decision on the internet.  Which I think everyone would agree with.  But people are just engaging in a free-flowing discussion, which occasionally touches on debateable subjects.

Back to the NFLPA's brief now . . .

Joe

Why lessen travel at all? I agree with Pete when he says that cutting down on traveling doesn't help less fortunate schools get the extra funds required to attend more traveling tournaments. There's no reason to hamper ourselves before negotiations even begin, especially when traveling isn't the root cause of structural problems. If the MSHSL decides that traveling in the context of speech/debate is a negative thing, then perhaps we can begin discussing self imposed travel restrictions. However, until then, there is no reason to alter status quo policies that have been working just fine. (Again, I am not saying that resource disparities do not exist, just that restricting traveling is not the means through which to solve that problem).

Additionally, I don't believe that any of the methods of enforcement you outline would be effective in a world of travel restrictions. Sure, some schools may abide in the hopes of attending sections/state, but there are many competitive teams that would gladly give up those two tournaments for the national circuit. At that point, all that's been created is a division in the community and a much weaker state tournament. Also, while a "community norm" sounds noble, it will gradually shift back to the way things are now. The need to be competitive will outweigh notions of honor and you will see teams eventually return to more bid tournaments because a "community norm" is not enforceable. Maybe it is, but I wouldn't know why.

There needs to be a compromise on the issue. I obviously don't know the details of Doobs' conversation with the incoming president of the MSHSL, but it appears that a stance of  "status quo is good" will not get us far and result in the 600 mi. rule being adopted. Since a counter-proposal appears necessary, perhaps the idea that I stole from Pete would work. Perhaps we could try the status quo approach, but I think we need to be careful to not alienate the views that the board may currently hold.

A lot of schools will lose funding for the activity if there is not a MSHSL sanctioned state tournament in the event to attend. While at first it seems easy to just skip those two tournaments, it's not as easy as you think. Once you get into the coaching realm, you will realize that administrators don't understand what the "TOC" is, but will always ask you how you did at State.

Perhaps you are correct that that a community norm would not work. I have no idea and haven't been around long enough to know how effective it would be. It was just an alternative that I listed that could be possible.

Pete wrote:

"Calmer than you are, Doobs."

Sorry, I didn't mean to indicate that people weren't discussing this calmly I only meant to say there is no need to rush to judgement on the issue. 

I think it is important for us to have this discussion even if the MSHSL wasn't bringing it up. I don't feel in the end that the MSHSL will actually take action to restrict fine arts the same way they are restricting sports but I could be wrong on this. In case I am wrong it is important that we take proactive measures to formulate a solution that the MSHSL would accept in place of a total ban on out of state travel if one is needed.

Chris

I believe everything Pete and Joe has to said is absolute genius and I'm all for it.  

See my "Crazy Ideas No One Likes" link in my signature.  I think I wrote that up about 3 years ago now...I'll see if I can find the thread from the old forums as we really hashed this thing out a lot then.

DJ

I tend to think that accepting any sort of travel limitations will probably just eliminate competitive opportunities without any real advantages to offset them.  However, I also know my perspective on this question is somewhat limited by my relatively short timeframe of experience.

For those who have been around longer, could you provide some context in the form of answers to these questions?

- Policy debate has been in continual contraction since my first season in 1998-99 - which was in the era of the STA team mentioned above.  To what extent has there been a unique rise in travel for MN teams, when did it start, and did policy programs start disappearing before or after a rise in travel?

- Is there any evidence that travel restrictions in other areas have spurred unique increases in participation in the activity or have increased coach recruitment or retention?

These questions are somewhat in the form of cross-ex questions meant to rhetorically advance a point, but they also stem from genuine curiosity and lack of personal knowledge.

As a final point, I don't know that any gains in competitive equity can be achieved in a world where some students can afford 7 week camps and some squads can pay their assistant coaches greater sums than other squads have for their entire budgets.  To really level the playing field in debate, the MSHSL would probably need to institute substantially more draconian restrictions.

For those of you who know about my career transition, you can imagine the draconian options I'm considering.

I like Iowa.  My boyfriend is finishing his M.D./Ph.D program at the University of Iowa.  But as much as I like traveling there, I didn't envision Iowa as the scope of my debate team's "national circuit." 

So I think a meeting is definitely in order.  I'm in class from 2 until 9 pm on Mondays and Wednesdays for the time being, but could probably make any other time work with a little notice.  From what I recall, it usually works best for everyone to meet on a Saturday anyway.  What about Saturday June 20th? 

I think that perhaps some input from our esteemed President might be appropriate here.  Cort, are you alive up on the 7th floor?

Joe

I cannot speak for Policy debate but I would say that LD debate has also been on the decline now for the last decade as well.  In that time, I think the count is somewhere near 25 programs that no longer do LD debate.  I would also say that the "importance" of the TOC has equally increased during that time.  This is not to say that the TOC is a bad thing but I think it's rise in popularity has "forced" more programs out to the national circuit in the hopes of getting bids.

If memory serves, it is Kansas that has a similar travel restriction based on the number of miles outside of the border that schools are allowed to attend.  It is my understanding the debate is that state is also growing at a fairly large rate as well.  It looks like they average about 20 tournaments a month and follow a similar schedule to ours - Sept to January.

http://www.kshsaa.org/debate/DebateTourney.pdf

Now of course, their success could have absolutely nothing to do with travel restrictions but rather more, smaller tournaments offering success for programs all around the state.

DJ

Debate in Kansas has always been very strong.  They probably have the highest participation rate in the nation.   I mean, if you are arguing that travel bans are bad, and pointing to Kansas as your data, you're working way uphill.  To me, Kansas proves both the advantages and disadvantages of such bans; they promote participation and a very strong local circuit, but they also make it harder for teams to reach the top level a la STA GP, Edina DE, HP GO, Blake GM, etc.

Joe

ND also has travel restrictions and debate has declined in both quantity and quality there since the ban was put into place, which was about 6 or 7 years ago - although admittedly it has improved in the last couple of years.

But honestly individual examples are never going to do very well. The number of such examples is way to limited to derive a general rule (and all travel bans are different), and the number of factors involved are also enormous. That's not an argument for doing nothing, but I think it's easy to throw the baby out with the bath water on this one.

Also, there is a trade off between size and quality. We could make debate really accessible by allowing it to become really unrigorous and shortening the schedule to a month, but obviously nobody wants to do that. We could also make debate really high quality if we all cut everyone but our top two teams and exclusively traveled the circuit, but nobody wants to do that either. I don't think there is an objective way to draw that line, and I'm sure there are as many opinions about where it should go as there are people interested in this issue. With that in mind, I think that any community effort to address accessibility should try to do so in a way that, as much as possible, respects the right of students and coaches to put in extra effort and reap the educational and competitive benefits that go with that. That is not to say that no restrictions are appropriate, but as has been said by others in several places, given the education benefits that derive from travel, the least draconian means necessary to accomplish our objectives should be preferred. The Pete/Aneesh plan seems to achieve that objective to me.

I think there is an inertia that drives the arms race (perfect analogy Pete) and short of significant mandated restrictions from above, I don't think this 30 year trend is stopping anytime soon. :( 

My opinion is that we have to be careful when we are weighing educational benefits.  In life after debate, at what point are the larger benefits of debate no longer accruing or at a point of diminishing return?  Here is what I mean: Debate trains you to become an articulate, organized, critical thinking and communicator.  Are the kids who do Classic (a limited season form of debate) any less well-trained in life-long skills than kids from Lakeville, Hopkins, or Edina who travel all over?  Is that the claim being made above? 

Perhaps the MDTA's approach should be to encourage the top local teams to "stay home" more, rather than preventing them from traveling.  Coaching in an area where the "local" teams and the "travel" teams rarely compete (not because of travel bans, but for other reasons), I can assure you that it's not better.  Draconian travel bans will not prevent teams from traveling.  They will just forego the local circuit entirely, diminishing the local competition and the perceived value of the state tournament.  Our team sent six students to TOC in LD this year, and only one of those students chose to participate in nat quals.  None went to state quals.  Beyond that, without the exposure to a strong local style, the traveling debate in this area has lost much of the grounding that students get from more traditional debate.  It is very technical/progressive/unapproachable.  

The trend that I have noticed in the past few years in Minnesota is that the top traveling debaters skip local tournaments, even when they are not traveling.  That means that the teams without resources do not have the opportunity to compete against those who do, and nobody benefits.  I would encourage the MDTA to find ways to encourage debaters to compete at home rather than attempting to punish travel.   

A strong local circuit is where you grow strong novices.  Things are good in Minnesota, despite the issues.  I would encourage the MDTA to look for ways to strengthen the quality Minnesota local debate, not weaken it in the name of equity.

Barbara

While Kansas has seen some participation rise, there is one major negative trend to isolate. The quality of the top Kansas teams has deteriorated quite significantly. Back in 2007, there was a Kansas team in finals at NFL Nationals. This year, I could not isolate any nationally competitive Kansas team to save my life. Schools that used to have teams in TOC finals now only deliver mediocre showings at the Iowa tournaments, etc. If you're going to isolate specific examples, look to the downsides as well. There's no point in expanding participation if the education/level of competition is going to rot.

This is a proposal that I heavily agree with. Instead of creating a "community norm" or a rule centered around limiting travel, why not create one designating the number of local tournaments that a team should have to/be encouraged to go to? There's no reason to limit the number of traveling tournaments when so many lie outside the realms of the local circuit calendar.

Policies such as these could solve all of the problems outlined. There would be more participation and competition at local tournaments with more top teams being encouraged to stay home for a few weekends in October/November. Hopefully this increase in numbers would also contribute to entry fees being lowered, thus freeing up more resources for poorer schools to use for travel.

Also, in the case of there being no outlined policy on this subject, there are ways to incentivize teams to spend more time on the local circuit. The first method that comes to mind is that of a more innovative tournament structure. For instance, the Sibley tournament, which utilizes the challenge format, saw participation by all three MN TOC-qualified teams not to mention many other competitive teams. Or else, perhaps some type of points system could be established, in which teams earn points for doing well at certain local tournaments. Then at the end of the year whatever team accumulated the largest amount of points would receive some type of award. I mean, it works for NASCAR (Nextel Cup) and the PGA Tour (Fed Ex Cup). These are just ideas, but you get the jist.

In the end, I feel like setting aside October/November for local tournament competition (with the exception of two weekends - Caucus and Glenbrooks) would solve structural problems better than a definite ban.

The Kansas ban was established well before 2007- that example doesn't help your argument. That team was also competitive at the Iowa tournaments that year, while the ban was in place.

I think it's important to remember that the MSHSL will probably NOT apply the rule to the Fine Arts. Even if they would want to, they will consult the MDTA first. While I do not support a ban, it is good to have a discussion of how to facilitate local debate. How does one enforce that teams participate in local invitationals? While the MN ciruct is actually a lot better than many others (in policy at least, not sure about LD), the current system does not seem to incentivize/force debaters to compete locally.

Indeed I am alive up here on 7. 

This is an issue worth discussing, and in fact it is an issue to which we should devote sufficient time before making any policy changes.  Fortunately, I believe we can work it through without feeling too much time pressure or pressure from an outside regulatory body (i.e., the MSHSL).  My understanding, from sources I trust, regarding the MSHSL travel restrictions is that:  (1) they are unlikely to be extended to cover fine arts activities in the near term, and (2) any attempt to extend them will not take place without giving debate and speech coaches (not to mention band and choir and theater directors) an opportunity to provide input. 

This doesn't mean MDTA should not be addressing the issue of travel--some members clearly want to look at it, it may very well be an issue we need to consider in making outreach more effective, we may at some point be asked to provide input on proposed MSHSL policymaking, and we might want to get ahead of that curve by adopting some of our own guidelines.  Or perhaps not.  I anticipate some very divided opinions on the subject (which is just another reason to talk it through and not rush into anything). 

My feeling at the moment is that we should have an in-depth discussion on the subject at the next general membership meeting, and we should try to do what we can to encourage good turnout for that meeting so that we hear lots of voices.  I don't think, given the current state of MSHSL activity, that we need to call a special meeting to talk about this.  I do think, though, that we should try to keep the agenda for the next meeting somewhat limited so that we have plenty of time to hash this out.  (Right now I can think of only three somewhat major items for discussion at the next meeting, and this is one of them.) 

On the other hand, if there is a groundswell of support for a special meeting devoted solely to this topic, I will make it happen.  People should feel free to let me know what they think. 

I realize that two years is a significant portion of your life, Trevor, but it is not long enough to establish trends like this.  Plus, it's both insulting and quite likely inaccurate to say that not being nationally competitive (if in fact that is where Kansas, for instance, currently stands) makes the debate circuit there "rotten."  There's a wide spectrum of quality between "rotten" and "nationally competitive," and it does no good to simply dismiss everything below the latter standard as useless. 

Also, if you read carefully what other people have posted, you'll see that they are considering your point.  Joe's post, for instance, acknowledges that although Kansas's travel restrictions appear to have benefits, one drawback appears to him to be that it makes it harder for their teams to reach the top echelon of competition. 

A few things.  I wasn't pointing to Kansas as the be-all perfect example just that Kansas does have a ban (as does ND) so what can we learn from those experiences.  A straight out ban of travel or a distance measurement of travel is bad!  I would never want to see one nor support an all-out ban.

Second, I also like the "MDTA Cup" idea of some sort of season long points run.  (See crazy ideas point #3 for my thoughts on this one.)  A system that could reward both small and large programs for a year long worth of success.

As for the idea of "encouraging" local participation I'm not 100% sure how we do that.  (And trust me, I've spent some serious time thinking about with lots of people.)  The problem with a "minimum" requirement - i.e. you cannot go to Sections unless you go to x number of tournaments - is that we could potentially exclude some programs from sections/state that really only debate at the end of the year.  I mean, the only way this really happens is if there is some sort of buy-in from head coaches encourage participation/recognize the value of local debate and instill that local debate is just as important as circuit debate or a compromise system that says during the months of Sept to Jan you can travel outside the state for x number of tournaments.  The number could be reasonable, like 3, and define "out-state" tournaments as anything occurring outside of MN and its neighboring states or something.  That gives teams who want to go onto the circuit a lot of oppertunities and they can do anything after the month of January.

The problem is always "enforcement".  We cannot stop someone from going to the sections or state and I'm not sure we would want that.  Maybe our super cool MDTA Cup ends with a scholarship for a senior and if you violate the "encouragement plan" you aren't eligible for super fancy scholarship.  Just throwing ideas from the hip now.

DJ