Improving my Team

[soroco120]

I am working on starting up and improving a team.
I want to have people specialize in certain topics and give them material to study.
Does any other coach do this?
If so, what is your breakdown of subjects and the distribution?
Is it specific or broad, and how do you go about making sure people study.

Thanks.

[Terrible Shorts Depot]

I'm going to go ahead and assume that you guys are decent, not terrible, not great, and you just need some help to get over the bump from decent to good. If you guys weren't good at all, my advice would be a different.

First, attend tournaments. As many as possible, with as many teams as possible. I find that the single thing that helped me the most was just playing. If I go a really long time without playing competitive matches, my skills begin to atrophy, while if I play a lot of tournaments in a very short time, I get better quite rapidly.

I feel like learning basic quiz bowl things (authors of common works, etc) helped a lot too. That way, if a question makes it to the giveaway, you have a solid chance of getting 10 points. This also helps for bonuses, because the easy part of many bonuses could function as a giveaway in a tossup.

I would say that subject specialization isn't a must, but it can be helpful. At first, it is a lot easier to learn about what you are interested. For example, if you are not a sciencer, don't really bother going through an entire O-Chem text book until you have a comfortable level of skill in stuff that interests you. In essence, learn what you already know. If you are a capable lit player, focus on improving that first, as opposed to delving into something that you aren't a huge fan of.

As far as making people study, you really can't force someone into studying. One has to have a desire to learn in order to improve at this game. You can, however, certainly make it easier for someone to study by setting a positive example and aiding them by providing materials. Direct them towards Chris Carter's website. Direct them towards the Stanford Culture pages.

Ok, in conclusion, the two things that will really help you, i.e. your team, the most are: one, more experienced (I barely fit into this category) players and intellectual curiosity. You've already made motions towards embracing the first of those two things by showing up on this site. Good luck with all your endeavors!

People who are better at this than I: did I miss anything or mess anything up?

[Stained Diviner]

Charlie is correct. The three big subjects are history, literature, and science. It is common for teams to split up science so that one person is better at chem/physics and one is better at bio, or some other such arrangement. Teams sometimes also split up a subject if nobody is naturally strong at it so that they can divide and conquer, but building on your strengths is very important. Depending on the format, fine arts probably is also a biggie, and it's a subject where you can get a lot of points with a little hard work, and social sciences or math may also be important.

We also could give you some advice on which tournaments to attend if you told us where you are located. Unfortunately, your school name is not helpful in this regard because it is common.

You will find that this community is welcoming to new teams, especially ones interested in learning.

[Red-necked Phalarope]

We also could give you some advice on which tournaments to attend if you told us where you are located. Unfortunately, your school name is not helpful in this regard because it is common.

This topic would seem to indicate that this Village Academy is the one in question.

[dxdtdemon]

I assume that you were one of the two people from Village Academy who showed up to Ohio State's From Here to Eternity tournament. It also appears that your school had a team that went to the two-day tournament at Solon, and one or two other tournaments this year, however, your team name is often in quotation marks, so I assume that you have been playing with a guy from some other high school. Given as how teammates from your own school probably have a minimal amount of experience, if your team can make plans on extremely short notice and is willing to drive three hours, there is a tournament being run on NAQT set IS82-A at Poland Seminary High School near Youngstown. I think that they are desparately needing an extra team, so they might be fine with the fact that registration closed on it two days ago. Here is the link for it: http://www.createphpbb.com/phpbb/viewto ... mforum=oac Even if you can't get into the tournament, contact Greg Bossick anyway, as he and Cathy Mullins put together a directory of all of the teams in Ohio, and send out information about upcoming tournaments within the state. As for other tournaments this year, there is Buzzerpalooza and GLRAC at Case Western Reserve on 3/28-29 (Saturday is Cleveland TV tournament format, Sunday is PACE format), which has a thread on both this board and the Ohio board, there is the NAQT Ohio state tournament on 4/25, and there are some upcoming tournaments in OAC format that I don't know too much about, but would be included if you got on the mailing list. Outside of that, I agree with the suggestions that other people made.

[dxdtdemon]

In another thread, you said that you were interested in qualifying for some national tournament. I would advise you to stop playing on "open" teams, as the rules for any of the national tournaments state that you have to qualify with a team composed of students from entirely one school. I assume that some of the people that you have been playing with this year were from The Wellington School, Olentangy, Olentangy Liberty, or Olentangy Orange. Those four schools I just mentioned seem to have one of them shock a few teams at a few tournaments each year, but do so on an alternating basis. While I think they mostly just do OAC and In the Know, I think that they would be willing to play NAQT if the tournament was just down the road from them. Have your coach request Greg's directory, so that he/she can contact those teams to see if they are interested in your tournament, or it never hurts to try asking one of those teams if they are willing to scrimmage sometime. Also, it will be beneficial if you also post your tournament announcement on the Ohio board, and if you notify Greg/Cathy about it so that it can go on the mailing list.

[at your pleasure]

Also, a lot of people here feel that the best way to improve is write questions. However, question-writing is generally more benifcial for experienced players; inexperienced players should probably concentrate on developing "canon knowledge" in the manner described by Charlie. The only thing I would add to that post is that although I am not a huge fan of lists, they are fairly useful introductions to unfamilar subjects and are good guides to "what comes up".