Is that what you say to your employer?  The fact that you have a child means everyone else should work the same hours you do, because you have a kid.  No one else should get ahead, let's lower the bar for everyone.  What's the line for "feeling comfortable?"  Why does the community have to bend to the will of the coaches, instead of the coaches making some sacrifices in terms of how much they are involved.  No one is saying "go away" to these coaches, we're just saying "be responsible, manage your time, don't impose a burden on us."  

Also, if they don't want to put a lot of time in, fine.  A travel ban is not going to change anything because some programs are still going to put a lot of time in, and other local teams are going to have to deal with it.  Also doesn't answer my argument about Dave McGinnis, Scott Voss, and Aaron Timmons:  they are married, they balance debate, and they don't try to burden other programs because they have kids.

Mr DCH, please read what I wrote to Aneesh.  7/8 state finalists from 2005-2008 were exclusive local circuit debaters.  I have no idea why people have this self-defeating attitude, but it is unfounded.  Also, there are a ton of programs on the circuit with just one coach that are successful.  Wade Houston at Oak Mountain (who is a college student) functionally runs the program.  Eric Palmer from MVLA was basically their only coach for a few years around 2005.  That program was EXTREMELY successful.  You want to talk about time trade offs?  How about college kids?  They have exams and tons of academic pressure on them.  I don't know how to draw an exact analogy to parenting, but dealing with an undergraduate education compares somewhat to the time commitment of parenting.  How about the lone wolf programs that thrive in MN?  SLP comes to mind.

These arguments you are making also reify the belief that kids cannot debate because they don't have coaches.  The onus is not on you.  If the kids want to compete and do well then let them do it!  Let them manage their own time!  You cannot blame coaches and kids who are willing to put in time and penalize them because you CAN'T put the time in.  Just because you cannot commit to the level your kids may want you to, does NOT mean you get to limit their ability to compete, or more importantly, an other program's ability to compete.

Yes.  And I want you to prove to me it was a result of time commitments related to traveling from other programs.

My poor PF/LD kids are getting less attention because of these posts.

I have two global arguments before I get back to work:

(1)  Tim, you still haven't answered the double turn argument.  If leaving the state is so necessary to get the level of competition you need to be a TOC level debater, it certainly acts as a disadvantage to those not able to travel.  But more importantly, it isn't enough to say "Go watch a video of good debates online".  Are you kidding me?  Do you honestly think that watching a video of a debate even remotely compares to the intellectual rigor and functional experience of debating someone really good?  When the competition is really good locally, it does a lot more than help the top of the tournament.  All those teams that debate the best teams at local tournaments, even if the debate is fairly one-sided, wouldn't have otherwise gotten the opportunity to drastically improve their own skills.  They see first hand the kinds of arguments, level and depth of preparation, and overall skill of their opponents and can improve as a result.  You ONLY get that with a vibrant local circuit, because even in a world of big teams and unlimited travel, no one is taking everyone.  The true opportunity cost is between excellent debaters getting a ton of travelling tournaments and improving debaters getting the chance to hone their skills against the best of the available competition.  This is NOT possible in a world where the local circuit isn't vibrant.

(2)  You probably haven't stopped to think about this, but if all of the good Minnesota teams made an effort to attend local tournaments and encouraged other schools from other places to do the same, we could get back some bid tournaments in the state.  There used to be a few more around here, but they've withered away because almost no one comes.  Get the size and quality of the tournament up, and we can bring the competition to us (and add a few more local bids to boot).  I'm well aware that this isn't something we can just will into existence, but the only possibility for it happening is to revive local debate.

I've always tried my best to get the kids I coach to attend local tournaments as much as possible.  No one (or virtually no one, I guess) is arguing for a travel ban, just some limitations to help rebuild the local circuit.  It's easy when one sits in a position of privilege that allows you to travel to say that it's best for everyone and the entire community.  It's not, however, and the sooner we take off those blinders and try to improve local debate holistically, the better.

You should probably check CVs before hitting 'send'. I traveled to twenty tournaments last season. I am also married and have a 2 year old child.

This is a question of long-term sustainability. Debate _programs_ do not survive without coaches. One debater at a school is not a program. That model is not sustainable. High travel demands increase coach attritition. 'Responsible' people with very good time management skills STILL quit because of travel demands. Do you want them to quit, knowing that the probability that they will be replaced by a shrinking pool of new graduates goes down over time as participation levels drop? This is how local circuits die. Ask the Northshore schools how 'local' debate was in Chicago before the Chicago Debate Commission took off.

I had not noticed that SLP only had one coach. Perhaps that is because THREE of them were on my college team. All of your examples are outliers, usually the product of an extraordinarily dedicated individual. 

"We'll work harder" is just a PMN, and not a particularly good one. There is a diminishing marginal return to pre-round effort (practice speeches, block writing). The place where the returns become low enough may be fairly high on the effort scale (meaning: UMN debaters, still work hard!), but it does exist.

 <<snide remark added>>

And, if you poll parents who also have college degrees, approximately 99.9% of them will tell you that parenting is just a bit more demanding than being a college student.

Honestly, this is mind-numbing, because everything you are bringing up I have already addressed, and the argument isn't developing.  Regarding the double turn, look at my response to Pete.  Where it's answered.  And I say its answered.  Until you address that I'm not writing anything new.

Yes, watching videos online will help people get better.  "Are you kidding me" is not an argument.  Also, guess what, I made a suggestion that we improve the local circuit by requiring kids who travel to also attend local tournaments, and incentivize them with sweepstakes.  Then they can debate the circuit kids and get experience because they decided to debate locally.

But you're also not answering my response to Aneesh and everyone:  the local circuit does really well locally:   look at the state results for 2005-2008 that I already went over.  Also, they leverage local norms against national debaters (made that point already as well).  It makes no sense to ban travel if the local circuit isn't hurting.  Still kinda want to know why its okay to tell kids "game over" because the MDTA mandates it, even if they want to still compete.

Good bid tournaments?  Like Blake?  And the Minneapple?  That's pretty solid.  Again, yes lets improve the local circuit.  Lets not ban travel.  Ain't difficult to do. Also, no competition?  Look at Fresca's post earlier about how many good kids attended local tournaments this year.  She gave you some numbers.

No one is making you do anything.  You are not required to travel.  You can still be competitive.  The whole point I've been making is that the local circuit can survive while people travel.  Case in point, Minnesota 2005-2008 State results.  The defeatist attitude of some coaches just doesn't hold up to be true.  Also, I gave you a bunch of examples of single coach teams on the national circuit (which is apparently way more demanding) that are successful and long running.  Also, I'm waiting on some numbers about the lone wolf schools that have died.  Nice numbers on parenting though, I believe that.  I have no idea what the Chicago Debate Commission is, going to need an explanation there if you're gonna dig in on that.  What I do know about Chicago is that New Trier, Glenbrooks, and Chicago Latin travel.  They have a competitive district.  This is true of New York, Texas, etc. etc.

Again, do you tell your employer that because you have a child, everyone else must take a cut in their hours because you have?  Bring everyone down?  No one can get ahead?

Seriously, gotta be done with this for a while.  Why don't you all take the time to read through the thread, see how it has developed, and then figure out where to go from there.

No need to "name names" (would rather not anyway--not my place to drag specific persons into a debate in which they have no personal stake)--just look at the list of schools at sections in 1999 in LD and policy, or 1989 for an even more dramatic example. Compare that school list to 2009. You will see a precipitous decline, especially for policy between 1989 and 1999, and LD between 1999 and 2009. You will also see a marked contraction in the number of one-coach programs who participate in LD or policy debate.

Coaching is not a 'profession' in the vast majority of cases, especially at the high school level. Most programs depend on people who largely volunteer their time (most stipends cover transportation costs and a value meal). For those persons with professional debate coaching positions (meaning it is their job--me, for example), extensive travel is not nearly as burdensome as it is for the the full-time teachers, students, attorneys, and nonprofit workers who make up the vast majority of our coaching ranks. Those people burn out and quit at a rate faster than they can be replaced. Uniqueness goes one way, and that is toward program contraction and participation decline.

Even if it is only driven by Jones'ng (which it is not--others have clearly demonstrated that there is a competitive benefit to national travel on the local circuit, even in LD, which has _yet_ to fully undergo its schism), unregulated travel drives an arms race that increases time demands on coaches and accelerates coach burn-out.

The competitive 'local' circuit in Chicagoland virtually died about ten years ago. The 'arms race' helped drive dozens of programs out of the debate, until it became almost impossible to have a state tournament. Local debate in Iowa in any meaningful sense is on its deathbed, although there is some hope it might be revived. Minnesota is going down the same path. The MNUDL will likely help 'save' local policy debate, in large part because it offers participation paths for coaches that do not demand extra-human effort.

Forest. Trees.

Here's a couple questions for those who feel some sort of regulation on travel is necessary:

1. To the general proposal that limits travel from sept-mar: Why is it fair to limit travel AFTER the local circuit is over?  What harm does it do if schools that want to travel chose to do so once the Minnesota season is over (ie after southern mn nat quals)?

2. What benefits does a ban/limit have (a la DJ, Steffan) over some sort of incentive (a la Hogan, Torson) or some sort of minimum local participation (a la Trevor) ?  To me, at least, encouraging the circuit teams to participate more in local tournaments seems like an ideal way to both encourage participation on the local circuit without restricting debaters from enjoying an activity that they obviously are dedicated to.

In LD, Texas and Minnesota are generally two of the strongest circuits in the nation.  Texas is able to not only have immense success on the national circuit, but they all participate in the local circuit (and for at least the past two years, both finalists in TFA state have been in outrounds of TOC).  Granted, both states have issues with their local circuits (Minnesota is worried about sustainability, Texas has the TFA/UIL Split), but I feel the lesson we can learn from texas is that when if you tie local success to some bigger goal (ie state or a sweepstakes trophy or whatever), people will respond to it. 

Now this doesn't mean that there aren't things that can be done to improve the local circuit (but then again, there always will be), but I feel like it would always be better to try positive incentives before fairly strict regulations.  This isn't to say there cannot exist rationale contrary to what I'm saying, I'm just curious as to what said rationale would be

1. Negative externalities: Still incentivizes out-of-state travel. Schools have a strong (in fact, stronger) incentive to travel their juniors throughout the spring to gain a competitive advantage for the next fall. That is the most obvious, others come to mind.

2. Prisoner's dilemma. The benefit of defection/downside of the defection of other parties is too great.

Texas is not a good example for you: a) participation has dropped considerably in the last 15 years; b) numbers are strongest in the more restricted/rules based of the two circuits; c) the population of Texas is between 3 and 4 times that of Minnesota, making is a poor analog; d) national-circuit competition in Texas is subsidized by schools from outside states (including MN) who are attracted to the number bid tourneys, which in turn lowers entry barriers for bid-seeking teams in Texas, who have a decent shot of qualifying without leaving the state.

And after following this discussion for awhile, I decided to actually get an account just so I could post my thoughts.

It’s probably clear to everyone by now that I traveled a lot as a debater: all Iowa and Minnesota tournaments, plus Glenbrooks, Stanford, and Berkeley. As Tim, who coached me this past year, points out, I only bid at the last two tournaments I attended. Of the five local tournaments that were held on weekends I was not traveling, I attended three of them: U of M, Hopkins, and Highland Park. Jefferson was held on the same day as the SAT, as Ford pointed out; I took one SAT subject test and then came to Jefferson to be with my novices. I believe I was doing college applications over Sibley.


On travel restrictions

I was so fortunate to have coaches that allowed me to travel, to go “bid-hunting” as Tim calls it. I understand where people are coming from in terms of limiting the amount of travel, to conserve money for schools and to save coaches. I am curious about travel post-MN season (after state/southern NFLs). In LD, if no one could leave the state after January, there would be four tournaments maximum (Blake, sections, state, southern NFLs) that one could potentially go to before TOC on Jan/Feb which is a really undesirable option because TOC qualifiers would have three months of downtime before a huge national tournament. I think a proposal as suggested by Aneesh/Pete (the contiguous tournaments + 4 non-contiguous tournaments, championship tournaments don’t count) could be feasible, and could function, even for people doing last minute bid-hunting. Such a restriction might have schools changing their schedules, to accommodate late-season bid-hunting. Perhaps schools could reallocate resources to attend later national invitationals (Berkeley/Harvard, Stanford, Harker) instead of earlier ones (Greenhill, St. Marks).

DCH - This is probably me being silly and naïve, but of the later invitationals and championship tournaments I went to, I did not notice any Minnesota juniors going just to get more practice for the following year, at least not in LD. Most of the Minnesota debaters at the California invitationals I went to were seniors and all (junior - Catherine - included) were going for one of two reasons: to get a bid or to practice before TOC.


On state

The Minnesota state tournament is notorious for being of a more traditional style, at least in LD. Despite this, circuit debaters still participate. As Barbara and I mentioned earlier, 7/9 of the TOC qualifiers from Minnesota got from sections to state (and the eighth one that participated in sections and didn’t qualify dropped because of illness) and all seven that were at state broke; four were in semifinals. It should also be noted that it would be impossible for there to be full participation of TOC qualifiers at sections, because three were from the same school (Edina). There was an incredibly strong showing of national circuit debaters at state, but because state is more traditional, the national circuit experience doesn’t exactly help. In fact, it might even hinder, if the debater is not adept at adaptation.

As Tim pointed out, in other recent state tournaments, finalists were from schools that did not travel at all, despite the fact several national circuit debaters participated in the state tournaments of those years. At the local tournament that matters the most, traveling probably doesn’t make that much of a difference.


On local tournaments

Christian, I don’t entirely agree with your statements about local invitationals. You may have fought Catherine tooth and nail to come, but there are some national circuit debaters, like myself and Michelle, who come to tournaments because we want to. They are good warm-up tournaments, and good tournaments for adaptation, because as Chris points out, sometimes the judge pool includes parents. Please don’t suggest that all national circuit debaters dislike local tournaments.

I would love to see more participation from fellow “national circuit” debaters at local invitationals. Having some kind of points system or championship might encourage more people to participate, but honestly, I think it’s just sad that those debaters need incentives to debate at home. You should debate every chance you get because you love it. Or maybe I’m just weird that way.

Additionally, local circuit invitationals where national circuit debaters showed up tended to devolve into displays of national circuit debate by outrounds. This is a good thing. It gives the local debaters who don’t travel an opportunity to see and participate in circuit rounds that they would not experience otherwise because they cannot travel. Hopkins final round this year between David and Christian was basically a redux of Greenhill finals 2007 (narratives). The Highland Park final round between me and Chris involved a kritik, poetry, and counter-poetry. I guess this feeds the argument that national debaters bring home new ideas that, through observation, local debaters could learn as well. Now we just need the national circuit debaters to show up.
 

 Let me begin by saying that I'm a big advocate of more debate good.  I saw what this activity did for my kid and I wish that every kid could have that experience.  But I'm also an advocate of good debate and there is a downside to huge participation numbers.  The participation numbers, at least in the NFL district that I'm now in, are big.  We are the 2nd? largest NFL district and have the largest chapter in the country.  This is what local debate looks like here.

1)  We have a very difficult time scheduling tournaments because there are few schools with enough available rooms to house a local tournament.  There is no such thing as a single flighted tournament.

2)  There is no paid judging.  Judging is 100% lay/parent.  Before every tournament, instructions are given on how to judge including "try to take notes" and "speaking style matters, but try to listed to the content of what the debaters say as well."   There is no oral disclosure and we have received varsity ballots that say in the RFD: "The better debating was done by AFF on the NEG" and "The boy had a better speaking voice so I voted for him."  I believe that it's the debater's job to win the ballot no matter who is sitting in the back of the room, but explaining some of those ballots is very frustrating.  I was a parent judge for a long time, so I'm not disparaging parent involvement.  But in Minnesota, I learned very early on that I had to put a lot of time and effort into this activity if I wanted to be a competent judge.  Few parents have the time or interest to put that much work into it.

3)  Parents are required to attend tournaments here.  If your parent is not willing to judge at least half the tournaments you attend, you are dropped.  This has implications to outreach and the demographics of who participates here.  And the demographics reflect exactly what you would expect.

A result of this system is that local debate develops a very different skill set than traveling debate.  It becomes much more of a speech event and much less about thinking and strategy.  And students are discouraged from exploring advanced ideas and complex arguments, because the lay judges will not understand.  Analogies take the place of analysis, and new arguments in the final speech are a winning strategy (even though judges are provided that rule, when they do not flow, they are unlikely to recognize a new-in-the-two.)

I will reiterate my earlier remark that Minnesota has possibly the best quality local circuit in the country.  I urge you hold on to that by encouraging the strong programs and strong debaters to stay home, not drive them entirely out of participating locally.  Keep the qualified judging pool you have built, especially in the varsity rounds, with coaches participating in the judging and former debaters coming back to judge tournaments.  Well-instructed parents can make excellent novice judges and their voluntary participation helps with budget constraints and allows them to see the value of the activity.  I have seen the alternative, and I don't believe that it's better.

Ahh, the malthusian objection to increased participation.  I hadn't thought of that one before.  The obvious response to your point is that correlation is not the same as causation, and the things that you observe in your neck of the woods do not have to occur.  The judging issue is a pretty weak point in and of itself because MN has greatly weakened mores against student judging.  Varsity kids judging novices frees up judges.  It would also be partly resolved by increasing the number of coaches (even those with 'babies') (Thanks for the stamp of approval, though, Tim!) participating in debate.  A third partial solution includes better judge orientation.

Points for originality, but coming out in favor of lower participation will probably leave you in a minority of one.  Also, no one is driving students out of the activity.  Recall that there has been no discussion of a ban on travel, and that, by my count, even banning travel outside of MN and adjacent states (also not under discussion) would permit LD'ers six bid opportunities during the regular season. Any kids that leave the activity as a result of travel limitations will probably leave MN with a more thick-skinned and well-adjusted group.

There aren't six bid opportunities for LD in Minnesota and Iowa - there are five, four depending on what school you are from (since AV kids and Blake kids can't bid at their own tournaments). However, four or five is still a fair amount of bid opportunities; this year, I think eight of the ten LD qualifiers (ten qualified; nine attended the tournament) received at least one bid, if not both, at tournaments in Minnesota or Iowa. Michelle and I were the exceptions.

Single coached teams.  A subject that we haven't spent much detailing but I think would be good to look at.  How many are left I wonder?  Back in the day there were many more that I can think of but I'm having a real hard time thinking of any right now off the top of my head.  I wonder if a program can be successful with only one coach in today's environment.

As for a question by Tim a while ago directed at me about TOC = fewer programs.  I don't think I specifically said the ToC caused a decline in the state and if I did I didn't mean it that way.  All I was saying is that as travel has increased over the years the number of programs in the state has decreased.

As for Barb's argument of more debate vs good debate.  Isn't the solution to your problem having more tournaments on a given weekend?  When MN had more debate - we still had very good debate - but we could see upwards of three tournaments per weekend.  If we held three tournaments on a given weekend now our numbers would be pretty insignificant.  We have to accept that the numbers are so low that on many weekends through out the year we only have one weekend tournament (interesting enough many of those one tournament weekends happen on weeks where there is a big ToC tournaments that weekend also).  (Of course the x factor here is on many of the weekends there is a classic tournament with upwards of 120 teams.)

maybe it's just me, but I dont know how limiting the opportunities for kids to debate makes them a more "well-adjusted" group.  Some people want to debate as many weekends as they can, and a lot of us have friends in other states (speaking of connections, there was a fantastic article in the Jan/Feb issue of Foreign Affairs by Anne-Marie Slaughter that talks about how valuable making connections around the country and around the world will be in the 21st century - if you don't subscribe to foreign affairs you can create a free account there and read it).  While quitting debate would be absurd, i don't feel it would be quite as absurd for someone to pick between travel and say state, and that's up to them.  I'm not going to pass judgment on people who chose one over the other because both circuits have a ton of value and rewards, and I feel that it would be tragic if people would have to make this decision

For the record, what 6 tournaments are there in LD in adjacent states or MN with a bid?  I count 5 (Apple Valley, Blake, Valley, Caucus, Dowling).  Not that it matters, I'm just curious what I'm missing.

But that doesn't answer my question.  When coaches and debaters from programs that would have to cut back travel as a result of a restriction say "we'd debate more weekends in-state if there was some sort of incentive for it," what possible reason is there for using a restriction right away?  To me at least, CP solves case and avoids the DA (ie any limit is arbitrary).

I'll group A) and B) because I feel they're fairly similar:

From what I can tell, while UIL might have stronger participation, the QUALITY of the debating in the UIL circuit is much lower than the TFA circuit, and is closer to what Barbra Bryan describes than what we want.  Additionally, could the participation be going down simply as a result of increased competitiveness (independent of the desire to travel, just debaters committing to debate more, which I'd say is a good thing) or just as part of a cycle?  Also, Shane pointed out that Public Forum (a relatively new event) is growing like crazy, so that could be yet another reason for the decline in participation (and probably a fairly good one).

Re: C/D

My point isn't about the numbers, but rather that on the circuit that travels, they've instituted a state qualifying system based on success at local tournaments, and it's resulted in their local circuit being extremely competitive.  I admitted that both circuits have their own problems, but in terms of a way to encourage more participation, there could be a lesson to learn from Texas. 

What all of the debaters who are posting in this thread are trying to say is that despite the problems our circuit has, we're pretty lucky.  We have a strong circuit that most people are envious of.  Tournaments like the U of MN where almost everyone shows up are fantastic and show off how strong our circuit is.  Why make drammatic changes to something that, by and large, is still functioning?

And two 20 year old children, let's be honest.  We'll love you more if you keep taking us to Chili's.

Rest of the thread: tl;dr

Couple of thoughts:

1. No one is talking about a travel ban, that's stupid.  Travel bans almost certainly would reinforce schisms and lower the quality of local debate.  Travel restrictions may or may not be good.  I'm not in favor of them (this is clearly because Jefferson would start to fall behind Westminster), but it may be an inevitability.  The way the discussion seems to be going, we may not need to discuss them at all.  However, crafting a policy that sounds reasonable to the MSHSL is important, and a big part of that is echoing the language they use in their other travel restriction policies.  Luckily that provides an immense amount of leeway for us because we don't have to count contiguous states (IA, WI).  That reduces Jefferson, for example, from 3 or 4 tournaments "out of state" to one.  Sometimes.  I think, although I'm not entirely sure, that there are very few policy squads that would be affected by contiguous + 4.  From my understanding, and I haven't looked anything up at all, it might only be Wayzata.  And maybe not even them.  I do not speak for Lincoln-Douglas debaters, I don't know about the activity of travel they engage in, or even the full nature of the type of bid-hunting they do.  Would many people have been restricted from getting that last bid or two under a Pete/Aneesh proposal?

2. I don't think it's entirely unreasonable, if the issue comes up, for us to present an initial idea to the MSHSL that would not be a restriction oriented plan, but an incentives oriented plan.  Many of the people who determine the policy (if I'm correct) are not entirely familiar with the way that fine arts activities are structured, and therefore rely on outside consultation.  If we accept the need for changes in the system to foster local competition, we can probably tell them that an incentive structure that is less coercive is a fine way to do it.  Team Sweeps sounds awesome.  I also like the ideas that no one likes.  From DJ.

3. Chillax.

4. This discussion on single-coached teams seems a tad silly.  That there are successful national-circuit single coached teams seems more like an outlier to the general trend that they have been dying.  It seems particularly true when coaching is not full-time.  Our program alone struggles with three and if it was reduced to one, I feel like we would end it.  Not that Logan won't be a fine head coach, but even his cool-headedness and even hand at the keel might falter if left alone.  Kind of like his otherwise masterpiece 2NRs.

 "it might only be Wayzata."

That would depend on if it was 4 tournaments per debater, or 4 tournaments per policy/LD/Forum squad, or 4 combined with all your types of debate. Wayzata RR went out of the "Regional Area" (used to describe tournaments not in MN/IA/WI) for Glenbrooks, MBA, Berkeley. Wayzata BZ went to Glenbrooks, New Trier, Berkeley. As Francesca already stated, she went to Glenbrooks, Stanford, Berkeley. So if it was designed for 4 per debater, Wayzata wouldn't have been affected at all (And could even have gone to Greenhill as well). At 4 per Policy squad, still fine. At 4 per school, we'd have been over that.

A few thoughts . . . more later.

First, I should have made clear earlier that this isn't about me; I had to stop coaching for a variety of reasons, and travel wasn't a significant factor.  When I reread the thread, it occurred to me that people might think that I was talking about myself.  Not really true (although my experiences obviously inform my perspective).

Second, Tim, I think you are assuming that people are not listening to you because they disagree with you.  I'm reading your posts, I just have a different perspective.

Third, and this is really important, I really do appreciate the passion that Tim and other new coaches bring to the activity.  The fact that I might disagree does not in any way mean that I do not value those perspectives.  A bit of personal history here:  when a large group of new coaches became involved in MN debate in the early '90s, we felt that the older coaches did not care what we thought.  In retrospect I think we were oversensitive; if any of those coaches are reading this, I'm not making any accusations, just saying that is how we felt at the time.  We believed that we were ignored and no one cared what we thought.  So . . . in an effort not to create that impression inadvertantly, let me repeat:  I really do appreciate the perspective that the new coaches bring to the activity.  If I disagree, it is NOT because I don't appreciate what you bring to the table.

On a related note, I think there are a ton of great new coaches at the moment and I think that is great.

Finally, and my only substantive point in this post, is this:  I personally don't think that we should be looking for a travel policy that doesn't actually impact upon anyone.  I am more interested in a policy that actually impacts upon the community.

Now back to writing my brief about why preliminary injunctions in the labor context are a really bad idea . . .

Joe

Arif - As far as I know, in LD, four debaters would have violated the proposal as outlined by Pete/Aneesh. Three debaters went to five tournaments, and another one to six. If the proposal by Aneesh/Pete had been enacted for this past year, one LD debater would have been unable to bid because the bid was received at the last, and fifth, tournament outside the contiguous states that she attended.

I've kinda skimmed the thread, so apologies if this is redundant, but I'll chime in here with a few thoughts:

-Having seen this discussion more than a few times over the years, I'd like to note that I'm glad we've all made it 5 pages without turning nasty. Hopefully I didnt just jinx it.

-I like that we're debating the merits of specific policy ideas. Thank you Pete/Aneesh/DJ/etc for taking the time to think/type out said ideas.

-One sticking point that I don't see a lot of discussion about is the possible distinction between "regional" and "national" travel. Obviously  this is informed by my own experience as a debater/coach, but I see a couple of trips to IA or WI as orders-of-magnitude more sustainable than any tournament which requires air travel. The Glenbrooks is a grey area.  Some people might disagree with me. I just think that it's a necessary part of this discussion.

As a sort of thought exercise, The Houston-Dallas-San-Antonio (includes Austin) triangle has similar geographic characteristics to Minneapolis-Des Moines-Milwaukee, and in TX there is a sizeable mass of schools that find that level of "regional" travel sustainable. Now, there are substantially more people living in the TX triangle than the midwest one, which means more schools with more debate teams, but I still think that there are steps we could take if we wanted to encourage that type of regionalism. My beef with DJ's "Crazy ideas" proposal is that it doesn't distinguish between national/regional travel. 

Dude, aren't you supposed to be on your honeymoon?

All right, I am going to try to offer some ideas to help solve two of the big issues here. I’m sure most of you can guess how I feel about travel restrictions.

-Getting successful “circuit” debaters to compete locally.

1. Like I suggested earlier I think we need to seriously think about changing the structure of a lot of our early season tournaments. I am not saying these tournaments are run poorly because they are not they run great, the hospitality is fantastic etc. What I am saying is tournaments that offer 3-4 rounds with no elims are not attractive competitive options. That is why we see much higher participation at tournaments that offer 5-6 rounds and a break to quarters/semis. I know there are probably logistical problems with this but I think it is worth looking into.

2. I think we should do something to tie local success to the ability to compete at state. This is obviously hard given that the state tournament is run by the MSHSL and they are probably unwilling to deviate from the sections format. However, perhaps we could create a point/bid system in which kids would be required to achieve a certain amount of local success (or maybe even just participation) before they would be allowed to compete at sections. On the other hand maybe we should implement the system and have the state tournament operate as a festival? I don’t know just a thought.

3. Some kind of sweeps trophy that others have talked about might add some incentive.

- Increasing overall participation.

1. I think we need to encourage more two-school teams or at least the sharing of coaching resources between teams. This seems to have worked out well for Lakeville and for MVLA out in California. This decreases barriers to starting a new team and makes the cost of running a team much lower while at the same time not adding too much of an extra burden on coaches. Sure it will be more work for coaches but overall it is a more efficient use of resources to have 1 coach for a group of 30 kids from two schools than to have 1 coach at 1 school coaching 15 kids and have another school without a team.

2.  From what I hear the UDL is doing great things. I think we should replicate what they are doing across other forms of debate so that we can increase overall participation. I think offering kids more options in terms of the style of debate would make it more appealing and get more kids involved.