Somehow with all going on these past two weeks, I neglected to post on the blog that Carolyn and Becky have been invited to compete in the special new Public Forum Round Robin at the University of Pennsylvania in February. This is a huge invitation for our program and honors two very solid Roosevelt PF debaters. Congratulations girls! They will be making the trip with Carolyn's mother as the rest of us traveling that weekend will be at Harvard. There is some thought to in the future making this weekend each year a UPENN trip instead of Harvard for a number of reasons, not the least of which is cost.
The third weekend of February is nationally pretty much reserved for the Ivy League and West Coast national tournaments. Harvard is the largest invitational in the country. As it has grown in size and stature, they have hiked their costs (and so have the hotels) to the most expensive in the nation. While winning Harvard is a BIG deal, we never have done so (got second once in EX). So it will be interesting to see what Becky and Carolyn share about their experience at UPenn.
A word about round robin invitations. Round robins are meant to honor the best in the region, nation or whatever the goal of the tournament is hosting the event. When invitations are issued, the invitation will come with pre-established names (such as Dowling and MBA) or seeking the best team in your program (such as Blake). So some invitations come to the school and some to the individual. The Blake invitation this year was to the school but at the bottom of the email it asked if Nathan and Kayleigh would be available on their dates! Some round robins have applications to be completed for consideration and they choose from the applications what is right for their event. UPenn happened to be that type of a round robin. Hence, an invitation was extended based on the application of Becky and Carolyn. Blue Key is like that. So is Mason.
Also round robins events limit the number of appearances a school can have in their round robins. For example, Blake did not invite Roosevelt to the Congress round robin this year. That was disappointing
to a couple of our students. They thought they deserved a shot at it, and probably did. Instead, Ames was given the opportunity.
In an application system, I normally allow all who are interested to apply to the round robin and let the tournament director's make the call. In the case of the EX round robin at Mason five students from Roosevelt applied for the slot. They chose Nathan Leys. The same happened at Blue Key, and again, they chose Nathan.
When a program has multiple great teams or students in an event, like we do this year in EX and PF, the net result is that individual or team considered 2nd best is usually left out of the special events. It has happened before and will happen in the future. There is little we generally can do about it either.
I think back to Olivia Sandbothe in 2008. Olivia was a fine extemper and a two time national qualifier.
But she was always caught behind the #2 extemp student in the nation that year in Billy. Billy drew all the attention. However, that didn't mean Olivia wasn't a great speaker. She was, and she had her successes on the national circuit winning several tournaments herself. If you happen to be "second best" in our program at an event--so be it--but we aren't holding you back...beat our #1 team in a tournament--go win it! For example Nathan and Kayleigh haven't won every event this season at all. I have closed them out twice this season in favor of other Roosevelt teams performing better in a certain tournament. But they consistantly have been in out rounds of every tournament and consistantly in the top placement of the tournament. That has been the difference for them.
Tournament directors are smart people. They get it figured out through rankings, NFL points, applications, talking with coaches in a given area, etc. While UPenn responded quickly to the Roosevelt application, they also checked the girls out not only with me in a phone call but with another coach in the area as well.
Above all, they do what is right for their tournament. Rarely do we get lucky either. This year is the first year ever for Roosevelt that two of our extemp students are at MBA at the same time. It happened to four schools this year. Prior to this year, it has only happened 4 times in the history of the round robin! When you are great as a student or team but behind someone or a team perceived (right or wrongly) as better, getting a round robin invitation is not a likely thing.
This year's invites: Valley Sophomore LD (Julianna); Blue Key EX-2nd (Nathan); Mason EX-2nd (Nathan); Dowling PF (Kayleigh/Nathan); Dowling LD (Samantha Gerleman); Blake PF (Kayleigh/Nathan); MBA (Nathan/Lily); Harvard (Nathan/Kayleigh) and UPenn (Becky/Carolyn). That is 9 events-14 students. This is huge-a new all time record. But there have been plenty of seasons at Roosevelt where no one got an invite!
I marked the placing of students in the round robin though Blake. You can see it is rare to place in a round robin. As good as Nathan and Kayleigh are, they were middle of the pack in both PF round robins in which they have competed thus far. The reasons for not being better in round robins are as varied as you can think of: different styles of debate around the country, not the best topics for our teams, judges tend to split ballots in round robins because everyone is great, illness, etc. A few seasons ago Mirza Germovic competed at MBA with a 100 plus fever. He was dead last. Catherine Chiodo last year did the Mason RR with a collapsed lung and finished 3rd.
