Starting a team at Auburn University

[jmannor2]

In about two weeks, I will be at Auburn. I want to start a team, but I really need some help on the most effective ways to get interest. I want to host a tournament early in the year that obviously does not conflict with a football game. Collegiate novice, perhaps? University of Alabama has offered me advice already, but I figured it would be a good idea to make a topic about.

[evilmonkey]

If you're truly starting a team, chances are good that you will not have made enough progress in the "team formation" thing to have sufficient staff to host a tournament. Even if you have the warm bodies, some of them probably will not yet be adequate as readers. Focus instead on getting people around to practices, going to tournaments, and getting university approval (last part optional). Make sure that you allow others the opportunity to read during practices, so they can develop their ability to read.

[Sulawesi Myzomela]

First off, try and talk to anyone going to Auburn that's on this list.

Do you know of anyone else at Auburn who played quizbowl or something like it in high school? If you can find a couple of other people who miss that and want to do something similar in college, you've made your job a whole lot easier. You'll also need to find an advisor on campus who wants to help in anyway possible. After that, you (and anyone else you've enlisted to the cause) need to be as social as possible: talk to people in your classes, go to any and all campus fairs, put up posters, use Facebook and Twitter, just set up a booth in the student center and talk to people who come by, maybe even host a party or some other type of event. [NOTE: This all becomes a lot easier if you've become an official student organization.]

Also Auburn apparently has an Honors program, they might be willing to help you recruit new members, although make sure you don't exclusively recruit within that program because you'll find plenty of good players in the rest of the student body too.

[The Toad to Wigan Pier]

I think hosting a small tournament like Collegiate Novice is a doable idea for a new club with outside help. I would be happy to help out a new Auburn team in such a task and I know there are others who would do the same.

[The Ununtiable Twine]

I think hosting a small tournament like Collegiate Novice is a doable idea for a new club with outside help. I would be happy to help out a new Auburn team in such a task and I know there are others who would do the same.

It appears the only Saturday date you could pull this off on is 9/17 due to Auburn home games. It might not be a bad idea to host EACN on a Sunday if you intend to host. If you would like to host on 9/17, Alabama is at home against North Texas, and it's difficult to judge (even though it is North Texas) how many of our newbies would want to skip a home game to play quizbowl, because there's a good chance that Alabama football comes way before quizbowl in their minds, especially if they've never played a match before (and you are trying to cater to that audience). I know we've had an entire discussion about this issue on the forums but there's a very good chance that the crowd you're trying to convince to attend is interested in Auburn and/or Alabama football. Also, the point of EACN is to get inexperienced people to play in an easy tournament close to home, so I figure that most of your customers would come from existing programs in Alabama. You should also be able to get a good contingent from CCs in Alabama. It goes without saying that I'll come to moderate if an Alabama contingent is present at such an event.

[Horned Screamer]

I think that founding a club at the beginning of the year then hosting a tournament in September is way too ambitious and will probably end poorly. I know that at MU when I founded the team we couldn't even officially found the club until the end of September because they needed to approve us at some kind of council meeting, so if Auburn has any kinds of hoops you have to jump through to found your club like we (and many other schools) do, you may have to wait a good while before you are even allowed to register rooms. And of course that doesn't even address the fact you could end up without anywhere near enough players to staff it (and also, Collegiate Novice is exactly the kind of tournament they should be playing to get them hooked, so taking them out of commission for that event seems like a wasted opportunity assuming there is another host in the region). It can't hurt you to hold off for a few months to see where the team is, say, in October before deciding to host something.

[Matt Weiner]

If you have some potential teammates lined up and have found good results in your investigation so far about reserving rooms and things like that, I think you should go ahead and host, of course relying on Will and other people in your area with some expertise to make sure you do the necessary things to run a good tournament. I'm not sure where all this negativity is coming from about a new player who wants to do things, provided of course he's being realistic about his capabilities.

[Jesus vs. Dragons]

If you don't want/can't find enough people to host a tournament you should just come to our mirror of College Novice in September. It's a 5 hour trip according to Google Maps, and a tournament on College Novice questions would allow you to get out of town in plenty of time to drive back.

[ValenciaQBowl]

Absolutely y'all should come to Gainesville. And then you could lay some roses at the spot outside Yon Hall where the stolen laptop landed after Cam Newton threw it out the window, leading to his transfer and eventual winning of Auburn's first national title!

PS--But yeah, it would be great if you could come down to play.

[evilmonkey]

If you have some potential teammates lined up and have found good results in your investigation so far about reserving rooms and things like that, I think you should go ahead and host, of course relying on Will and other people in your area with some expertise to make sure you do the necessary things to run a good tournament. I'm not sure where all this negativity is coming from about a new player who wants to do things, provided of course he's being realistic about his capabilities.

Matt brings up a really good point, and I apologize if I came across as too negative. If you know you have the capabilities to host a tournament, then by all means do so.