What to do with terribly run matches/belligerent hosts?

[Ye Olde Buzzard]

I was going to post this under "How to deal with bad readers," but I ended up getting beyond that topic in the post so here's it's own thread:

At a VHSL regular season match the other day, my team experienced a reader who was, at least in any practical sense for reading quizbowl packets, illiterate. She butchered 100% of foreign origin names/words, science terms, country names, and subject-specific anythings, but that was understandable. What was worse was her inability to recognize and properly read words like "superiority," "inhabitants," and "science." There are other examples, but for the sake of maintaining question integrity within the VHSL, I hesitate to mention them. After the first period I suggested that the reader and judge switch roles, since the judge was correcting her pronunciation constantly(by the end of the match she was reading about 50% of the words over her shoulder.)

Herein lies the second, more appalling issue: my suggestion was accepted by the staffers, then overruled by the opposing team's coach. She then loudly proclaimed "This is my school, i'm running this match and you guys need to chill out. If you keep this up i'm getting my AD."

What do you do if a reader has something on par with an elementary school reading level and the host school refuses to do anything about it? Leave? What if a match is so poorly run as to render it unplayable?

Our bench players had to be chastised at one point because they were making fun of the woman's inability to read(they at least weren't doing this loud enough for others to hear) and she was clearly exasperated, exhausted and hated every second of her question reading duties.

This main "can we even have a functioning match" issue was in addition to the opposing coach (1) speaking poorly about other coaches in the district prior to the match, in front of our players. (2) setting the match up next to a loud air vent, which she acknowledged before the match, and promised us would stop shortly. When it didn't and we suggested sliding the tables closer to the reader she told us no. (3) The Judge saying after the match she did not know the rules when the game began(there was an error, be it timing, scoring, delays, etc. on nearly every question) (4) Correct answers being marked as incorrect twice, with our coaching staff having to speak up in each case(I think this came down to the reader not being able to comprehend the written answer line) (5) The packet having, apparently, swathes of illegible text, due to a printing error, which prompted the coach to approach the reader mid-tossup twice and stop the match to help the reader understand the text. These questions were not thrown out and a replacement question read, rather, the toss-up was started anew each time. (6) Our team being locked out of the building for the second year in a row (7) There being no chairs provided for parents of our team who chose to attend. (8) Speaking to me and my father as if we were children, publicly.

This was easily the most painful, shameful, debacle of a match I have ever been a part of, and I played CBI. Some of this post might just be that I need to vent, but the overall question of: What if a match is frankly just not a quizbowl match? Stop playing? Go ahead and talk to the AD? I am a volunteer coach, so I don't know if I can technically lodge a protest. Would a letter to area coaches be appropriate? The main goal is that this never happen to any other team. Any advice would be excellent. Thanks in advance.

User was reminded to include a first name in the signature.

[Mewto55555]

If you keep this up i'm getting my AD."

Sounds like letting this happen wouldn't have been a terrible idea, if the AD is a reasonable person.

[Stained Diviner]

While the match is going on, I don't think there is anything you can do in a horrible situation like that other than to let it happen. Now that the match is over, a good starting point would be to go to your supervisor (Athletic Director, Activities Director, Assistant Principal, or Principal depending on how your school is set up) and let them know about the situation. Most such supervisors are big on sportsmanship/respect, so you might want to start with the fact that the coach was bad mouthing other coaches in front of students and speaking to you and your father in an insulting way and then move on to why the match was a very uncomfortable situation for the students. Most administrators know absolutely nothing about quizbowl, so you should explain how easy it would have been to prevent many of the problems and the fact that it generally is an expectation that hosts will do so.

Honestly, I don't know if this will help, but it's at least worth a shot.

[Ye Olde Buzzard]

Thanks, some of the confusion is in how to communicate quizbowl stuff to people who have no context. I feel like talking about question integrity, noise, rule following, etc. is going to be met with blank stares. Leading with the unsportsmanlike things sounds like a good way to go.