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Team seriousness/four player rule (split from district results)

Discussion of quizbowl topics not related to specific tournaments
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L-Town Expatriate
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Team seriousness/four player rule (split from district results)

Post by L-Town Expatriate »

scphilli wrote:This is an archaic rule, and it certainly needs to be done away with along with the ridiculous minimum of player rule which does nothing but penalize teams for no apparent reason.
I can think of some reasons, but I doubt they would sway anyone. However, I would have to doubt the seriousness of teams whose players leave halfway through a tournament to attend a frivolous, overpriced rite of passage.

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Charlie Dees
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Re: 2011 MSHSAA Districts Discussion

Post by Charlie Dees »

Kyle, that's not remotely the only reason the 4 person rule is a huge problem. There are lots of teams who have played with 3 or fewer players at tournaments, and I don't doubt their members' dedication to the game. Do you really think Jefferson City, who had a player who had to leave because he couldn't get out of work, should have been disqualified if they hadn't luckily brought along a guy who had never played anything all year to fill in because they didn't show sufficient commitment? I know you've presented that argument before, and it's pretty nuts.

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Re: 2011 MSHSAA Districts Discussion

Post by scphilli »

L-Town Expatriate wrote:
scphilli wrote:This is an archaic rule, and it certainly needs to be done away with along with the ridiculous minimum of player rule which does nothing but penalize teams for no apparent reason.
I can think of some reasons, but I doubt they would sway anyone. However, I would have to doubt the seriousness of teams whose players leave halfway through a tournament to attend a frivolous, overpriced rite of passage.
I'd like to hear them because I'm pretty sure they are irrational. This rule is on its face arbitrary and frankly what Charlie said is right and it isn't your or anyone else's job to "doubt the seriousness of teams" or anything else along those lines.

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Charlie Dees
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Re: 2011 MSHSAA Districts Discussion

Post by Charlie Dees »

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that it doesn't help your cause when you say stuff denigrating prom (which may or may not be silly in hindsight but which is in fact the most important social event of high school). Occasionally there are in fact quizbowl players that want to do these CRAZY things like hang out with their friends, and have a good time dancing, and spend time with their girlfriend/boyfriend, and go to a party, instead of playing MSHSAA quizbowl.

(Also, of all the things you're attacking teams for not being interested in, playing the horrible MSHSAA series is really what you pick?!)

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Re: 2011 MSHSAA Districts Discussion

Post by WilliamofOrange »

ashkenaziCD wrote:Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that it doesn't help your cause when you say stuff denigrating prom (which may or may not be silly in hindsight but which is in fact the most important social event of high school). Occasionally there are in fact quizbowl players that want to do these CRAZY things like hang out with their friends, and have a good time dancing, and spend time with their girlfriend/boyfriend, and go to a party, instead of playing MSHSAA quizbowl.
Like two years ago, when prom stole our two best (by a good margin) players. :lol:

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Re: 2011 MSHSAA Districts Discussion

Post by Mewto55555 »

ashkenaziCD wrote:Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that it doesn't help your cause when you say stuff denigrating prom (which may or may not be silly in hindsight but which is in fact the most important social event of high school). Occasionally there are in fact quizbowl players that want to do these CRAZY things like hang out with their friends, and have a good time dancing, and spend time with their girlfriend/boyfriend, and go to a party, instead of playing MSHSAA quizbowl.

(Also, of all the things you're attacking teams for not being interested in, playing the horrible MSHSAA series is really what you pick?!)
i saw wut u edit out

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christino
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Re: 2011 MSHSAA Districts Discussion

Post by christino »

I don't think the placement is exact, but:
ashkenaziCD wrote:Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that it doesn't help your cause when you say stuff denigrating prom (which may or may not be silly in hindsight but which is in fact the most important social event of high school). Occasionally there are in fact quizbowl players that want to do these CRAZY things like hang out with their friends, and have a good time dancing, and spend time with their girlfriend/boyfriend, and go to a party, instead of playing MSHSAA quizbowl.

(Also, of all the things you're attacking teams for not being interested in, playing the horrible MSHSAA series is really what you pick?!)
I know we don't all observe legal age limits here, but that... :lol: ...that's just funny.

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Re: 2011 MSHSAA Districts Discussion

Post by DeckardCain »

Actually the moderating staff edited it out, so let's not go back and re-edit it back in.

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Re: 2011 MSHSAA Districts Discussion

Post by L-Town Expatriate »

ashkenaziCD wrote:Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that it doesn't help your cause when you say stuff denigrating prom (which may or may not be silly in hindsight but which is in fact the most important social event of high school). Occasionally there are in fact quizbowl players that want to do these CRAZY things like hang out with their friends, and have a good time dancing, and spend time with their girlfriend/boyfriend, and go to a party, instead of playing MSHSAA quizbowl.

(Also, of all the things you're attacking teams for not being interested in, playing the horrible MSHSAA series is really what you pick?!)
Unfortunately, MSHSAA is the only entity that can crown a state champion in Missouri; else MOQBA would have been able to declare their tournament winner in March the state champion, and naturally the vast majority of us (OK, all of us) would call them the champ and not the survivor of MSHSAA's unbalanced prelims.

If MSHSAA format were dumped in favor of a good 20/20 format, and kids still opted to put a personal interest above bringing home hardware for their school, then I'd have better reason to doubt their seriousness. And while schools are making efforts to avoid this conflict, they not only have to account for scholar bowl but every other potential team activity conflict: track, music contests, soccer, etc.

And while I'm fulfilling the role of the bludgeoned: no, I didn't go to prom, and it wasn't because I was rejected by everyone asked. I didn't bother asking. State was top priority. As far as I know, that trophy remains grouped with the other state champs. (If that's currently not the case, Cahill can expect a rather terse letter from yours truly as soon as I find out.)

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Re: 2011 MSHSAA Districts Discussion

Post by scphilli »

L-Town Expatriate wrote:
ashkenaziCD wrote:Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that it doesn't help your cause when you say stuff denigrating prom (which may or may not be silly in hindsight but which is in fact the most important social event of high school). Occasionally there are in fact quizbowl players that want to do these CRAZY things like hang out with their friends, and have a good time dancing, and spend time with their girlfriend/boyfriend, and go to a party, instead of playing MSHSAA quizbowl.

(Also, of all the things you're attacking teams for not being interested in, playing the horrible MSHSAA series is really what you pick?!)
Unfortunately, MSHSAA is the only entity that can crown a state champion in Missouri; else MOQBA would have been able to declare their tournament winner in March the state champion, and naturally the vast majority of us (OK, all of us) would call them the champ and not the survivor of MSHSAA's unbalanced prelims.

If MSHSAA format were dumped in favor of a good 20/20 format, and kids still opted to put a personal interest above bringing home hardware for their school, then I'd have better reason to doubt their seriousness. And while schools are making efforts to avoid this conflict, they not only have to account for scholar bowl but every other potential team activity conflict: track, music contests, soccer, etc.

And while I'm fulfilling the role of the bludgeoned: no, I didn't go to prom, and it wasn't because I was rejected by everyone asked. I didn't bother asking. State was top priority. As far as I know, that trophy remains grouped with the other state champs. (If that's currently not the case, Cahill can expect a rather terse letter from yours truly as soon as I find out.)
The MSHSAA claims to crown a state champion much like College Bowl claimed to crown a national champion, much like Panasonic, ASCN, and Chip Beall claimed or claim to do so. They are not the sole group from whom such authority derives and the argument being advanced is that the current setup undermines their authority to legitimately make the assertion.

Secondly, you still don't get it. It's not your job to judge whether or not people take this seriously or whether or not that should even be considered. The only thing that is relevant to this discussion is this: The current rule requires four players no matter what. For no reason. At all. Not only does this penalize schools that cannot assemble four players (Tuscumbia only has an enrollment of 70 for example.) but it hurts those one or two or three players on that team for no reason. A team lacking a fourth player does not in any way damage the integrity of the game being played nor does it provide the team short a player an advantage. In fact, it empirically places that team at a disadvantage. This isn't like basketball where a team of 5 playing a team of 4 would obviously damage the integrity of the result because one player would always be double teamed. The last I knew there was no man to man coverage in quizbowl. Nobody ever slapped a buzzer out of Max Schindler's hands and got called for goal tending. So either actually state a real reason why this rule should be allowed to remain or stop wasting everyone's time with these pointless, idiotic tangents.

Thirdly, no you're filling the role of the put upon martyr and it's of your own damn doing. Nobody does it better.
Last edited by scphilli on Mon Apr 11, 2011 11:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: 2011 MSHSAA Districts Discussion

Post by scphilli »

And what Charlie said but we're not speaking of ... kids have been doing that for ages. The world spins round, yada yada yada :).

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Re: 2011 MSHSAA Districts Discussion

Post by Mewto55555 »

scphilli wrote: Max Schneider
Notably not me.

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Re: 2011 MSHSAA Districts Discussion

Post by L-Town Expatriate »

scphilli wrote:The MSHSAA claims to crown a state champion much like College Bowl claimed to crown a national champion, much like Panasonic, ASCN, and Chip Beall claimed or claim to do so. They are not the sole group from whom such authority derives and the argument being advanced is that the current setup undermines their authority to legitimately make the assertion.
If that's the case, then label 2012's MOQBA Tournament in March a state championship rather than qualifier. If MSHSAA doesn't have sole authority to declare a state champion, then there should be nothing preventing MOQBA or any other entity from doing so save themselves.
scphilli wrote:
L-Town Expatriate wrote:
scphilli wrote:This is an archaic rule, and it certainly needs to be done away with along with the ridiculous minimum of player rule which does nothing but penalize teams for no apparent reason.
I can think of some reasons, but I doubt they would sway anyone. However, I would have to doubt the seriousness of teams whose players leave halfway through a tournament to attend a frivolous, overpriced rite of passage.
I'd like to hear them because I'm pretty sure they are irrational. This rule is on its face arbitrary and frankly what Charlie said is right and it isn't your or anyone else's job to "doubt the seriousness of teams" or anything else along those lines.
(Sharpen your knives when MSHSAA winds up using this as their same defense besides "we're in charge, deal with it".)

Frankly, I can only come up with one, and Sean has already demonstrated an adequate response to it. The minimum players rule is a typical MSHSAA extension of applying athletic rules to an academic event. Who goes into a basketball game with just three players? Or puts just seven guys on the gridiron? Because Scholar Bowl is a team sport, than teams are expected to have the minimum number of players.

The "scholar bowl is not a contact sport" argument is perhaps the argument we need to run with, rather than generalized maxims like "this rule is stupid/arcane/trivial". It needs demonstrated that a 1-on-1 scholar bowl match will generate the same results and action as a 4-on-4 (or any combination thereof). Chuq's individual tournament at pre-nationals are a great starting example.

I'm going to digress from this argument into suggesting something that should be the litmus test, as opposed to the amount of PR (er, lack thereof) they give us.

If you want a serious test of whether MSHSAA will ever realize that Scholar Bowl is a whole different beast than athletics, start with the single-gender multiplier. It's quite ridiculous to tell us that Sabrina's brain is automatically 2.7 times the value of Selena's, or twice the value of anyone's brain at TJI. Scholar Bowl is a co-ed activity, and keeping the single-gender doubler in really messes with schools with an actual population of under 500. However, while Villa has shown great success in their season (and would likely be going to sectionals were they in Class 3 with their non-inflated population), I'm sad to say that's the lone exception I know of with regards to a single-gender school between 400 and 750 students.

By doing this, it will set the precedent that Scholar Bowl is an activity truly unto itself. And then from there, you'd have increased leeway to potentially eliminate schedule limitations, limits on national tournaments, etc., provided the age-old concern of school time missed is addressed properly. MSHSAA may see this potential too and put the brakes on it as much as they can, all in the singular interests of maintaining their control over things for the sake of it.

If MSHSAA refuses to remove the single-gender multiplier on Scholar Bowl after having it explained to them that Scholar Bowl is co-ed, then forget dilly-dallying around with their bureaucracy. Take a sledgehammer to them and set up an independent polity that runs statewide tournaments, in defiance of MSHSAA. If they play hardball with schools and their players' eligibility status, well, they had their chance to prove their relevance, and you just might get some handy reform going for all high school activities.

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Re: 2011 MSHSAA Districts Discussion

Post by scphilli »

The multipliers are a separate issue and have more to do with pitting teams of comparable resources against one another rather than the whole brain power nonsense you laid out.

And no, using CHARLIE'S singles tournament as an example is not the way to go. My argument that the rule is hurting players for no reason other than a purely arbitrary one is entirely sufficient. Many coaches have actually stated something along these lines as they realize that no one is being helped by dq-ing a team that has 2 or 3 players and it only diminishes overall participation. Rules that exist and have no justification need to be removed.

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Re: 2011 MSHSAA Districts Discussion

Post by L-Town Expatriate »

scphilli wrote:The multipliers are a separate issue and have more to do with pitting teams of comparable resources against one another rather than the whole brain power nonsense you laid out.
So a school like Notre Dame de Sion presumably has twice the resources as fellow KC parochial St. Pius X? Both have a comparable number of base students, but because Pius is co-ed they remain in Class 3 while Sion is in Class 4. MSHSAA essentially presume that Sion has an equal number of boys from which to form their team.

Each student has (or should have) the same thinking capacity, whether he or she's in a single-gender parochial school, a school that resembles a shopping mall, or a quiet corner somewhere outstate. For MSHSAA to use in our co-ed activity the same inflated numbers, as devised originally for single-gender competitions, is just as outlandish.
scphilli wrote:And no, using CHARLIE'S singles tournament as an example is not the way to go. My argument that the rule is hurting players for no reason other than a purely arbitrary one is entirely sufficient. Many coaches have actually stated something along these lines as they realize that no one is being helped by dq-ing a team that has 2 or 3 players and it only diminishes overall participation. Rules that exist and have no justification need to be removed.
Calling MSHSAA out as being arbitrary is not going to singularly convince them to drop it. It might work on blithering idiots, but MSHSAA isn't a blithering idiot to everyone in the state just yet.
Last edited by L-Town Expatriate on Tue Apr 12, 2011 1:18 am, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: 2011 MSHSAA Districts Discussion

Post by scphilli »

L-Town Expatriate wrote:
scphilli wrote:The multipliers are a separate issue and have more to do with pitting teams of comparable resources against one another rather than the whole brain power nonsense you laid out.

And no, using CHARLIE'S singles tournament as an example is not the way to go. My argument that the rule is hurting players for no reason other than a purely arbitrary one is entirely sufficient. Many coaches have actually stated something along these lines as they realize that no one is being helped by dq-ing a team that has 2 or 3 players and it only diminishes overall participation. Rules that exist and have no justification need to be removed.
Calling MSHSAA out as being arbitrary is not going to singularly convince them to drop it.
This is not calling them out; I'm merely stating what the condition of the situation is and explaining why it is. When rules don't exist for any reason (and here any good reason) then yes, they should be dropped. Frankly I think trying to "convince" them of anything is stupid. Frankly I'm amazed some of these people even know how to read. Anytime one of them writes an email I'm always impressed by their ability to figure out a computer.

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Re: 2011 MSHSAA Districts Discussion

Post by scphilli »

And that last bit, that was me calling them out. 8)

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Re: 2011 MSHSAA Districts Discussion

Post by L-Town Expatriate »

scphilli wrote:And that last bit, that was me calling them out. 8)
I look forward to your posting their responses to your e-mails regarding this subject.

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Re: 2011 MSHSAA Districts Discussion

Post by scphilli »

Wait who said I was emailing them?

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Re: 2011 MSHSAA Districts Discussion

Post by Charlie Dees »

Kyle, trying to socially engineer Sean into doing something stupid and not especially productive like sending an email to MSHSAA, when we literally have no idea what anybody in MSHSAA's email is since all they have on their website is a catch-all address, and when emailing MSHSAA is not the best path to changing the rules anyway (instead of going through the advisory committee) makes you look like an obnoxious manipulator who doesn't really know what he's talking about to begin with.

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Re: 2011 MSHSAA Districts Discussion

Post by Mewto55555 »

ALL THE COOL KIDS ARE EMAILING MSHSAA

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Re: 2011 MSHSAA Districts Discussion

Post by christino »

Anyone else notice the thread is starting to derail a little bit? Like, the rule being discussed applies to MSHSAA and all, but I really don't think here is the place for some of the more recent posts, if you know what I mean.

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Re: 2011 MSHSAA Districts Discussion

Post by scphilli »

I'm pretty well done with this current inane digression. Looking forward to Kyle's next one.

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