Louisiana 2011-12

[Kevin]

It seems, unfortunately, that there are very few people involved with Louisiana high school programs active on the boards here. It also appears that most of the active programs are geared toward the LAAC format (complete with worksheet and lightning rounds) or toward Questions Unlimited tournaments. And since I'm reviving a program that has been dormant for a few years, I'm a bit off the radar of some of the other programs; I get the occasional mailings addressed to "Quiz Bowl Coach" in my school mailbox, but I didn't learn of a tournament that I believe was hosted either by Lusher or Sacred Heart until I found out by sheer coincidence that a teacher certification classmate of mine is Ben Franklin's quiz bowl coach and had attended that tournament.

I guess I'm posting this mostly to see who else is out there, and especially to see who is interested in moving toward a more standard toss-up bonus format on pyramidal questions from a provider such as NAQT or HSAPQ. I think there are few enough tournaments out there that teams will attend tournaments that adhere to the national standard (pyramidal toss-ups, toss-up+bonus format); whether they'll like them more than the LAAC or QU stuff, who knows. I'm glad to see that LSU put in a bid for the NAQT state tournament, and I was glad to go to Lafayette HS's tournament a few weeks ago. I hope to host a tournament at some point, perhaps in the spring, but if not, then definitely sometime in the 2012-13 school year.

[Mnemosyne]

I've been waiting on this thread forever, can't believe I missed it.

LSU hosted an NAQT tournament on the 19th that we attended. So far this year I've only known of two LAAC tournaments (Alexandria A+ and Tal Atkins) and then the two NAQT Tournaments (Lafayette and LSU). I really want to host a tournament sometime second semester and my coaches said they'll help but the students have to set up everything so we'll see if we can get that going. If we host one, you host one, and what you said about LSU hosting NAQT States is true (if so I'm pumped) then we could end up with around a 50/50 split for LAAC and 20/20 tournaments this year which is awesome compared to the 6-0 ratio for us last year.

Also, I think LSU is hosting a Questions Unlimited(?) tournament in January and after reading this site I'm hesitant about it, but I don't think I'll be able to stop my school from sending multiple teams.

Also: History Bowl January 21st at LSMSA and March 3rd at Zachary, just to throw that out there. Hopefully we can attend one of those as well.


Please post if you get any info on any tournaments anywhere near us. We want to play as many as we can get to.

[Mnemosyne]

Updates:

Yesterday was History Bowl at LSMSA in Natchitoches. Enjoyed it. Byrd won first place, a pair of brothers came from Baton Rouge Magnet (they were completely unaffiliated with the QB Team) and got 2nd.

St. Mary's in Natchitoches is hosting a tournament on February 4th. I'm pretty sure there's a tournament in Minden on March 3rd, which is also the date of the other History Bowl in Zachary (?).

Then this is scheduled for March 24th as of now, but hopefully it gets moved. viewtopic.php?f=1&t=12639

[Kevin]

Does Byrd do LAAC? Apparently the LAAC state championship is scheduled for the 31st, possibly eliminating yet another date for Tulane's tournament.

[Mnemosyne]

Does Byrd do LAAC? Apparently the LAAC state championship is scheduled for the 31st, possibly eliminating yet another date for Tulane's tournament.

Every team in North La does LAAC, because what else is there to do?

Does anyone have info on how the LAAC championship actually works? In the past there's been a regional qualifying tournament and two teams advanced to the state tournament. Our district tournament was in February last year, and the state tournament was two weeks later so this year's is way later. Is there only a state championship this year and no regional competition? I don't get the emails so I have no clue what's going on.

I'm not sure how to handle Tulane's date issue. If only two teams from each district go to LAAC, then Tulane might only lose a few teams on the 31st, which wouldn't hurt the turnout too much. If everyone competes at LAAC, then I have no clue how they should handle it. April 7th puts it the week before NAQT States and on Easter Weekend, I don't know how much either of those would affect turnout. The other March dates seemed like a problem for Tulane. Maybe moving it to February 11/18/25 would work? It would require a set change though. In the end, March 24th might even end up being the best date for the most teams.

Posting that last paragraph in the Tulane thread if it needs to be discussed.

[Kevin]

I received an e-mail from Lafayette HS saying that they were looking to host a tournament (using NAQT IS questions) and were planning on a March 10th. But then I received another e-mail from them saying that LAAC regionals were that day.

Also, if it's like it was back when I was in high school, LAAC has 4 divisions and each division has 4 districts, so a total of 32 teams compete. That's a pretty significant number.

February 18th is a no-go because that's the weekend of Mardi Gras.

[TulaneKQB]

I received an e-mail from Lafayette HS saying that they were looking to host a tournament (using NAQT IS questions) and were planning on a March 10th. But then I received another e-mail from them saying that LAAC regionals were that day.

Also, if it's like it was back when I was in high school, LAAC has 4 divisions and each division has 4 districts, so a total of 32 teams compete. That's a pretty significant number.

February 18th is a no-go because that's the weekend of Mardi Gras.

I think February 25th would similarly be too difficult because of Mardi Gras, which Kevin already noted.

We helped LSU staff their Questions Unlimited tournament today and I spoke with some of the coaches there. They confirmed that LAAC regionals are in fact on March 10th. Most said that they expected to move onto the next round, but indicated that if they did not then they would most likely be attending a tournament at Tulane on 3/31. Others, particularly Ben Franklin, stressed that they aren't going to Northwestern anyway and that the 3/31 date seemingly made the most sense--if not for teams statewide then at least for the New Orleans-area, south LA, and out of state teams (if we can attract any). I'm seriously leaning toward avoiding the Literary Rally conflict altogether, moving the date to the 31st, and seeing how many teams are available. Again, it's not a perfect solution, but I think it's the best option available.

[Mnemosyne]

St. Mary's hosted a fairly large tournament yesterday. I think there were 26 teams or so. Results were:

1st - Byrd A
2nd - Sacred Heart - Ville Platte (Hadn't even heard of them until we were in the finals so I was pretty impressed by them)
3rd - Neville
4th - Byrd B

Top 4 got trophies which is always cool.

Schedule for the rest of the year that I know:

March 3rd - Minden High
March 10 - LAAC Regionals
March 17th - Lafayette High told me this is the expected date of their tournament since they had to move it because of LAAC
March 31st - LAAC State/Tulane's tournament
April 14th - NAQT State

[Mnemosyne]

There were two tournaments yesterday that I know of - one at Minden High School and a History Bowl at Zachary. I don't know anything about the History Bowl, but here are the results for Minden:

1st - Byrd
2nd - Neville A
3rd - Caddo Magnet
4th - St. Frederick

It was a fun tournament. LAAC Regionals are next week.

[TulaneKQB]

Nick and Kevin (and anyone else in LA that might be reading this):

What do you think the chances are that there would be enough interest in Louisiana for a summer tournament--good? bad? very bad?

[Mnemosyne]

I think the problem would be that it's so hard to get teams to play 20/20 tournaments in general. I never posted about this, but we had the NAQT State Championship at LSU and 4 teams came. Byrd A, Byrd B, Dutchtown, and two kids Scott Smith appeared with. We were pretty disappointed in the turnout.

On that note, we could probably get two Byrd teams to go to a summer tournament. There are a few teams out there who might be up for a 20/20, but it might take searching to find them. It seems like a lot of teams in Louisiana are coached by older adults who don't really have a passion for Quiz Bowl and only do it as a hobby during the year, which would pose a problem for trying to get teams to travel in the middle of summer.

Not sure if I said anything useful outside of Byrd bringing a team or two.

Which brings me to a bigger point: I'll be going to La Tech next year and hopefully starting a team. If we could have a active programs at Tulane/LSU/Tech at the same time I think we should try and get 20/20 Quiz Bowl more exposure, push it harder, etc. I cannot stand the randomness of LAAC tournaments. Not the format, but the question sets all have completely different styles and distributions in every tournament and it's generally awful in so many ways.

[TulaneKQB]

I actually sent out an email to the other LA universities to this effect today; I'll forward it along to you.

[mhayes]

Which brings me to a bigger point: I'll be going to La Tech next year and hopefully starting a team. If we could have a active programs at Tulane/LSU/Tech at the same time I think we should try and get 20/20 Quiz Bowl more exposure, push it harder, etc. I cannot stand the randomness of LAAC tournaments. Not the format, but the question sets all have completely different styles and distributions in every tournament and it's generally awful in so many ways.

There's an active team at ULL as well, so between the four main clubs, all of the major parts of the state will have active college clubs. I think you guys have the potential to change things for the better, but given LAAC's strong presence in the state, it certainly won't be easy. Try not to be discouraged by the low attendance at NAQT State's. I think once teams become more exposed to NAQT or HSAPQ tournaments, things will start to change.

On a somewhat related note, what high school teams are considered the "power houses" in Louisiana today? When I played, it was Jesuit and Caddo.

[Grams's Go-Go Boots]

Byrd's been ranked a few times this year on my site; I think Lafayette may have been for a short period as well.

[TulaneKQB]

Jesuit and Franklin have been the best teams that I've seen, but that's a pretty small sample size.

[The Ununtiable Twine]

On that note, we could probably get two Byrd teams to go to a summer tournament.

Maybe you could get them to come to WRK on 9/15? I know it's a six-hour drive to Tuscaloosa but they can get exposure to some teams from the MS/AL region. We haven't posted an announcement yet, it's kind of early for that, but I am TDing most if not all of our events this year, so tournaments should be well run and enjoyable.

Which brings me to a bigger point: I'll be going to La Tech next year and hopefully starting a team.

It's a five hour drive to T-Town from Ruston, I'm sure we'll have two or three events for you guys to play next year. In my playing days in Louisiana, a five hour drive to an event was a blessing. At the moment it still is for the most part. If you need any help starting a club, there are many resources on this site to help you get started. You can also PM me and/or Matt and we'd be happy to help.

[Mnemosyne]

On a somewhat related note, what high school teams are considered the "power houses" in Louisiana today? When I played, it was Jesuit and Caddo.

Jesuit and Menard are the "powerhouses" but honestly neither of them are that good on real quiz bowl. Byrd was (in my biased opinion) the best 20/20 team this year, but we're pretty much a one-hit wonder. Basically I found this site last year and since I was probably the only player in the state who seriously practiced using online material I went from nothing to (in my biased opinion) the best player in the state. Our other 3 starters did not play at all last year. So basically we had a captain who was the worst team member in the few tournaments that I played, and then 3 people who didn't play at all last year, and we shot to the top of the state pretty fast.

So basically a team of completely inexperienced players became a top 3 team in the state in about 2 months. That's how strong La QB is.

Caddo Magnet was a powerhouse in the early 2000s, but their coach retired and is now a teacher at Byrd, but not overly involved in QB. Their new coach doesn't really travel much so we saw them at 2 tournaments this year.

The only time I saw Jesuit all year was at Lafayette's NAQT tournament in October. We lost in prelims and beat them in the finals. They've won LAAC State like 4 years in a row or something. They also play a bunch of other stupid competitions. You can check those out by googling their quiz bowl team.

Menard has a pretty good team every year by Louisiana standards, not so much this year though.

Lafayette went to HSNCT last year and this year I think. They're active 20/20ers but I don't know if all their players are graduating or not. They were the only team we played and didn't beat all year.

Dutchtown has a young team and a young coach who like 20/20 so I'd make sure to contact them for every event.

Mike Landry is the head of LAAC, and the coach of St. Mary's in Natchitoches. Northwestern St. is pretty much the heart of LAAC, so I don't know how much you could hope for from NSU.

I'll try to answer any questions anyone has about the North La Circuit since I know as much about it as anyone I guess.

Annual tournaments to keep in mind:

Alexandria A+ Kickoff tournament (LAAC) is in September.
Tal Atkins at Caddo Magnet High in Shreveport is the best LAAC tournament you can get. They take an NAQT set and put the questions in LAAC format.
St. Mary's hosts a tournament every year in Natchitoches in January/February which a lot of teams attend.
Minden High School has been hosting a tournament the last few years in the January - March range.

There were history bowls last year at LSMSA and Zachary.

-----

Maybe you could get them to come to WRK on 9/15? I know it's a six-hour drive to Tuscaloosa but they can get exposure to some of teams from the MS/AL region. We haven't posted an announcement yet, it's kind of early for that, but I am TDing most if not all of our events this year, so tournaments should be well run and enjoyable.

I'll do my best, but I tried all year to get us to travel to some good tournaments and it never worked out. It's possible the A team could go, though.


Edit: Removed something potentially offensive to a specific school

[Kevin]

FWIW I was probably going to send a team to NAQT State in Baton Rouge; then I saw nothing about it on this forum, didn't get an e-mail about it, and only saw it on the NAQT website. So I sent a team to an LAAC-format tournament at Franklin, and it's safe to say the questions were just as bad as I remember from my playing days at Jesuit in the early 2000s.

I do think it is going to be tough to turn the tide of LA quizbowl toward the 20/20 standard, but I do think it's possible. The first thing to do is to run good tournaments on good questions. The second thing is to ensure that people know about these tournaments. I don't know what publicity was done for the NAQT state tournament, but I knew that Scott (who is presumably still affiliated with LSU, right?) posts on these forums, and when I didn't see an announcement, I assumed it wasn't happening. And of course, there are dozens of schools that don't read these forums and need to be contacted by e-mail or even snail mail--I've gotten a handful of quiz bowl-related things (LAAC, Lafayette HS's fall NAQT tournament, some Academic Games stuff) in my school mailbox. LAAC has a directory on its website (but the directory is from 2008), so maybe that could be a starting point. I'd be happy to forward whatever e-mail addresses I've accumulated this year (although I assume that Ryan would have most of them already).

There will always be some complaints about a new format, longer questions, longer tournaments, etc., but I think that most teams are looking for more tournaments to attend--it's not as if there's an LAAC tournament every weekend and we have to steal teams away.

[Mnemosyne]

Aside from the NAQT state fiasco, Lafayette tried to host another tournament in March and no one signed up for that either. Then there's the rising power of things like this: http://www.alexandriabowl.org/ and I'm a little worried about people taking to a different kind of quiz bowl. Should we just host tournaments and hope they come? Or should we make an actual outright effort to force change? ie announcing that Louisiana is miserably behind the rest of the country in quiz bowl and change needs to be made .

Lafayette is attending HSNCT, and there are 3 schools attending NAC in New Orleans. Schools in Louisiana just don't know about 20/20, this website, HSNCT, NSC or anything like that. I honestly think a unified effort might need to be made. I'm not confident in things just changing.

[Horned Screamer]

It sounds to me like there is enough infrastructure to make a Quizbowl Alliance model work in Louisiana. It requires a lot of outreach work, but it totally is doable if the people on college teams and a couple coaches are on board with promoting it.

[Kevin]

I'm not sure what happened with the March tournament at Lafayette HS--I don't know if it was a matter of the date getting moved around to avoid conflicting with LAAC or what. Their fall tournament went pretty well and had a good turnout. At first I was more of the "build it and they will come" opinion, but that doesn't seem to be working. The BHSAT mirror at Tulane only attracted 4 different schools (all of them in the New Orleans area). I think there are a few teams that are very willing to attend good tournaments when they're available. But we need to do a better job of reaching out to the teams that play occasionally. For example, Jesuit's quiz bowl page (http://www.jesuitnola.org/cgi-bin/j.pl?i=1732) mentions at least 10 schools in the New Orleans area, most of whom I've never seen at a good tournament. It's not even a matter of getting schools to start programs or find moderators; it's just a matter of reaching out to these schools and hopefully getting them to attend something other than an LAAC-format tournament. If someone (me or Tulane or anyone else) is hosting a tournament in New Orleans, we had better get through to each and every school with a quiz bowl team, whether by e-mail or letter or phone call.

I also think that some sort of website/outreach along the lines of MOQBA could work. Most of the coaches I've spoken to can tell the difference between a one-line LAAC tossup and an NAQT or other pyramidal tossup, but they don't seem to grasp why the latter is better.

Also, as an FYI, I got an e-mail from the Lusher coach about a tournament he's hosting on September 1st (I haven't decided 100% yet, but I'm probably not going). Other than the Alexandria thing on September 22nd (which I had never heard of until just now), I don't know what else is out there early in the fall--I know September 8th is an ACT test date, but there are no SAT dates that month, so maybe a tournament on the 15th or 29th? I think the sooner we can get some concrete dates established for tournaments, the better. The good news is that the fall is somewhat less busy than the spring for most schools--no district/state rally, no LAAC regionals or state competitions, and so forth.

[Matt Weiner]

Then there's the rising power of things like this: http://www.alexandriabowl.org/ and I'm a little worried about people taking to a different kind of quiz bowl.

I couldn't find any info on their extensive website about the game format or question source/style. I'm not expecting anything good, but what can you tell us about this?

[TulaneKQB]

We have a couple of people on our team from Alexandria--I'll see if they know anything about it.

[ether a go-go]

You asked for it.

[Grams's Go-Go Boots]

A B-team of X-Men enemies!

[Mnemosyne]

Then there's the rising power of things like this: http://www.alexandriabowl.org/ and I'm a little worried about people taking to a different kind of quiz bowl.

I couldn't find any info on their extensive website about the game format or question source/style. I'm not expecting anything good, but what can you tell us about this?

LAAC format is 10 tossups, a lightning round, a worksheet round, then another tossup round, with 4 bonuses answered all at one time. I have no idea how question sources go, but they seem to be completely different for every tournament I've been to. Tal Atkins at Caddo Magnet High (which hosts their annual tournament at the end of September/Beginning of October every year, another date that should be taken into account) uses an NAQT set, but they take the questions and stuff them into LAAC format. The Alexandria Tournament posted uses questions written by two guys at LSU-Alexandria, who is hosting. I don't know who does the official LAAC regional/state tournament questions, but they are absolutely awful.

What I'm gathering is that the communication is awful for all tournaments, which I think was Kevin's original point. This gives me hope that if the people who are hosting good tournaments can get a good contact list, we'll have an advantage.

I'll go to Alexandria and Tal Atkins next year and work on collecting contacts barring unforeseen college things. Here's the list of teams who are already signed up for the Alexandria tournament: http://www.alexandriabowl.org/siteuploa ... 281%29.pdf .

I think an alliance-type thing without even pushing it would be a good place to start. Just a website to post tournaments, results, recognize teams/players, and expose teams to the qb world outside of LAAC would be great. That requires someone who knows what they're doing to run it, though. Worst case scenario I could run a free webs page or something, but I would hope for something a little more attractive.

[Romero]

Kevin,

Can I ask you to email me at romeroc-at-gmail.com? I would like to help you get a Louisiana Quiz Bowl Alliance off the ground.

Chris Romero
formerly of Catholic High School, New Iberia

[mhayes]

Although I'm no longer in Louisiana, I'd also like to help get an alliance off the ground. My e-mail is matthew.hayes --- case.edu.

[TulaneKQB]

Nick, Kevin, myself, and others on the Tulane team are working on setting 2-3 events for the fall, compiling something like a reliable list of local contacts, and getting a webpage up and running; we look forward to getting everyone's (Matt's, Chris's, etc.) input and help once we get the ball rolling on these, especially in reaching out to local teams. I'll be sure to include anyone who has expressed interest in future email correspondence.

[The Ununtiable Twine]

There have been 30-40 team tournaments in the state in past years which used good quizbowl, as UL's old high school tournament perennially drew that many until around 2010. Teams are willing to attend if you do the proper outreach and you have a decent location and you keep in touch. Coaches in Louisiana are always very thankful when the tournament director responds with prompt emails and I never had trouble running a Fall tournament using good quizbowl questions. Unfortunately for us, most schools in Louisiana are usually focused on other academic competitions in the Spring, which makes hosting larger tournaments pretty much impossible at the moment. When I held NAQT state, the highest number of teams that ever attended was 8. I fathom this is because we don't have very many dedicated quizbowlers in the state, but that could change if we offered them a better product. In that case, more teams would be likely to come to your events because they would consider them to be as important if not more important than their other competitions.

Oh yes, husbandofsamus at gmail dot com is my email but most of you Louisiana folks already have it. Please keep me updated as well.

[Cassian]

I would love to be a part of this effort as well, and I'm happy to lend whatever support I can, even if it's bringing some novice LASA teams to a tournament in New Orleans or Lafayette next season to help fill out a field. Romero and I are both alums of Cajun Quiz Bowl at USL back in the day and I played my college QB at LSU (also back in the bad old days of CBI), so I have strong ties to LA and would love to see the circuit develop.

[Grams's Go-Go Boots]

I have no connections to the area, but I'd be more than happy to do what I could to help as well.

[nadph]

Bellarmine's coach Chris Fleitas is an alumnus of Jesuit and played QU while he was there; he may still yet retain some helpful connections. I'll see if he is able to help.

[Horned Screamer]

If Louisiana teams, especially in the north, are interested in traveling overnight, Harding University and Parkview Magnet in Little Rock both run good tournaments, and Little Rock is about 3.5 hours away from places like Monroe and Shreveport. This isn't going to do a whole lot to help spread good quizbowl locally, but if there are already interested teams in the area who are looking for more chances to play good questions and improve, those are some drivable tournaments. Looking through NAQT's results, it looks like there are also a few tournaments in Mississippi - Copiah-Lincoln may have run an A-set tournament without posting results, Tupelo ran a tournament on an IS set, Millsaps ran an IS set tournament, and St. Andrew's ran an IS-set tournament (which seems to only have playoff stats posted). I'm also seeing that New Orleans to Houston is about 6 hours, so maybe a stretch for those teams but something to consider, especially if you're closer than NO, since Houston hosts tournaments with many nationally competitive teams.

I would suggest for teams who are serious and interested in becoming nationally relevant that they make an attempt to travel to any and all of these tournaments that they can get to. I would also try to get in touch with the hosts of the tournaments I listed above to give them contact information for other, less serious teams in your area. It may not yield a whole lot of results, but the more information there is out there, the more likely a team that might not be used to good quizbowl is to decide to register for something. Given the current situation in both Mississippi and Louisiana, both of your circuits could really help out the other if you do a lot of cross pollination, at least to make sure field sizes are a little larger and more teams play more tournaments.