NAQT Alabama Championship

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NAQT Alabama Championship

Post by acmagee »

The Alabama Academic Quizbowl Team is pleased to announce it will be hosting the Alabama state high school championship on Saturday, March 28th, 2009, at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, AL.

Coach and player meetings for the state championship will be held in one of the newest buildings Alabama has to offer, Alston Hall. Match play will be held in the equally modern Bidgood Hall. Registration begins at 8:30 a.m., with the player/coach meeting starting at 9:30, and match play starting at 10:00, with the tournament hopefully concluding at 5:00 p.m.

Interested schools should return a letter to us expressing their interest in attending, or email us at [email protected]. The entry fee for every team entered in the tournament is $80, with a $10 discount for buzzers, and a $15 discount for bringing a moderator.

Confirmations for tournament attendance (with amount of teams indicated) MUST be received by March 21st. We hope to see you in March!

-Andrew Magee
President, Alabama Academic Quizbowl Team
Last edited by acmagee on Tue Feb 10, 2009 8:56 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: NAQT Alabama Championship

Post by Golden Tiger 86 »

Sure about that date, mi amigo?
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Re: NAQT Alabama Championship

Post by Matthew D »

I stand corrected that is NOT the same day as regionals.. .
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Re: NAQT Alabama Championship

Post by wexs883198215 »

Um...I assume you are not scheduling something for two years ago
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Re: NAQT Alabama Championship

Post by AndyShootsAndyScores »

wexs883198215 wrote:Um...I assume you are not scheduling something for two years ago
I think Magee loves copy and paste too much.
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Re: NAQT Alabama Championship

Post by quizbowllee »

We will have been there. :razz:
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Re: NAQT Alabama Championship

Post by acmagee »

Fixed. March 28th, 2009.

We're also changing the price.
Base fee: $80
Buzzers: -$10
Moderator:-$15
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Re: NAQT Alabama Championship

Post by Joshua Rutsky »

Do we have a field update on this tourney yet?
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Re: NAQT Alabama Championship

Post by Matthew D »

Just wondering if anyone would mind doing a field update please
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Re: NAQT Alabama Championship

Post by quizbowllee »

I know we will have two teams...
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Re: NAQT Alabama Championship

Post by Matthew D »

I will have 2 also...
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Re: NAQT Alabama Championship

Post by quizbowllee »

Seriously, what is up with this tournament!!!!!?????!!!!
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Re: NAQT Alabama Championship

Post by AndyShootsAndyScores »

I've tried to contact our president but to no avail. We should have an update by the 23rd (at the latest).

EDIT: There will be an update by tonight.
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Re: NAQT Alabama Championship

Post by Matthew D »

thanks Andy appreciate it
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Re: NAQT Alabama Championship

Post by acmagee »

Field update:

Oneonta
Holy Spirit Catholic
Indian Springs
Brooks High
Russelville
Baker
Brindlee Mountain (2)
DAR(2)
Hoover
Last edited by acmagee on Mon Mar 23, 2009 10:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: NAQT Alabama Championship

Post by Joshua Rutsky »

We have confirmed for this tourney as well-- Hoover will be there with one team.
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Re: NAQT Alabama Championship

Post by acmagee »

Would everyone who is attending but hasn't sent us a email stating such please do so? It'll help keep things organized over here.
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Re: NAQT Alabama Championship

Post by quizbowllee »

OK... I'm gonna be brutally honest here. Alabama needs desperately to get their stuff together when hosting tournaments.

I will go through the problems point-by-point.

1) Why can't Alabama print schedules BEFORE the tournament starts? We got to the tournament and were told where to go for round one. We were supposed to get printed schedules after the first round. But, apparently they ran out of ink!!! So, it wasn't until after round 2 that we got printed schedules. Furthermore, the schedules were bad. My B-team played the same team twice and one team not at all!!! In a 10-team round robin, that should not happen.

2) Why can't Alabama decide on a tournament format and let us know about it before the tournament? With 2 rounds left in the round robin, they decided that we would have a playoff with the top 4 teams. The coaches of the top four teams agreed to end the tournament before the playoffs. It was clear that Hoover, being undefeated, had won. I couldn't get the folks at UA to understand that it looks very bad when you decide the playoff structure after the tournament has already begun. I can only imagine how unfair it would have been to Hoover if they had gone undefeated and then been subjected to an arbitrary playoff where they had lost. Tournament format should be decided and implicitly explained BEFORE the first match is played!!!

3) Where was the advertisement for this tournament? Why is the communication so terrible? Last year, Alabama was awarded the bid to host this tournament and flaked out at the last minute, leaving the tournament in jeopardy. We at Brindlee Mountain agreed to step in and save the tournament. We had three weeks to prepare for the tournament, but I saturated the board with information, called coaches, sent e-mails and faxes, and basically got the word out as much as possible. We had 16 teams attend on three weeks notice. Alabama knew since at least August that they were hosting, made no announcements, and only had 10 teams in attendance. We are trying to grow pyramidal tournaments in Alabama and we desperately need more exposure for major events like the NAQT State Tournament. We had to BEG for information about this tournament.

I understand that NAQT would prefer that the tournament be held on neutral ground. But, does NAQT not also wish to have the largest possible field? Do they not want the tournament to be as professionally-run as possible? The coaches of DAR, Hoover, and I talked about this at length. While we do understand the idea of neutral ground, could we not set up a system whereby the NAQT State Tournament rotated amongst the three of us? The three of us are very vested in promoting better quiz bowl in the state. We would make sure that information was readily available, that every single team in the state was aware of the tournament, that the tournament is run professionally, fairly, and efficiently.

This is nothing personal against the folks at UA. Obviously, I have former students on the team, and I think highly of those members that I know. But, there is a clear lack of leadership and failure to communicate that reflects poorly on the team. Many of these same problems occurred at the invitational tournament back in August. I was hoping that they would address these issues before the State Tournament.
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Re: NAQT Alabama Championship

Post by Joshua Rutsky »

Agreed. The folks at UA were very nice, and they obviously were working very hard Saturday, but with a 9:30 scheduled start, I expected we'd get going on time, that everything would be set, and that there would be no glitches. It was clear that there were a few completely inexperienced readers there, some unable to even come close on pronunciations, and that just shouldn't happen at a state championship event. I'm all in favor of supporting UA quizbowl, and we came to the William Rufus King tourney the last two years, but this was a very low turnout (partly, I'm sure, due to finances at schools), and it should have been eminently manageable.

I would have been fine with the round robin playoff, which was in keeping with the NAQT principle of an advantaged championship, but I think all of us were tired after 9 rounds, and no one really wanted to play three more before dinner given that lunch was a single slice of pizza.

I appreciate the effort that was put into hosting by the members of UA's team, but a state championship is not the same thing as an invitational, and needs to have at least one established, experienced person coordinating it and supervising, not a couple of hard-working college kids who have no authority to make sure their peers get up and get there on time. It's just asking too much of people with too few resources.
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Re: NAQT Alabama Championship

Post by Matthew D »

I am not piling on but both Josh and Lee are correct in the statements that were made. Please guys if you need help putting something like this together ask. I know that there were several offers of help extended to help make this State Tournament a great tournament but it seemed like that no one wanted to listen to the people that have had the experience in hosting what should have been a very large tournament. All of us that play at the Alabama tournaments want them to succeed and help us spread the pyramidal doctrine in the State of Alabama but when we have things happen like Saturday, it gives the people opposed to pyramidal questions more gasoline for their bonfires.
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Re: NAQT Alabama Championship

Post by AndyShootsAndyScores »

Describing this tournament as an atrocity would be an understatement. To be honest, I had little to nothing to do with this tournament other than reading and providing some input on playoff structure. I'll try to address the issues you guys have put forth, though.
quizbowllee wrote:1) Why can't Alabama print schedules BEFORE the tournament starts? We got to the tournament and were told where to go for round one. We were supposed to get printed schedules after the first round. But, apparently they ran out of ink!!! So, it wasn't until after round 2 that we got printed schedules. Furthermore, the schedules were bad. My B-team played the same team twice and one team not at all!!! In a 10-team round robin, that should not happen.
We had schedules printed before the tournament, but we had teams cancel on us last minute, leaving those schedules useless. Should we have come up with another schedule immediately after we found this out? Absolutely. Should we have made sure the only printer we had actually had ink? Definitely. As far as your B team's situation goes, Lee, I had no idea this had happened. That is something that should never happen at a tournament, let alone NAQT State. For that, I apologize for our "statistician"'s failure to, well, do his job right.
quizbowllee wrote:2) Why can't Alabama decide on a tournament format and let us know about it before the tournament? With 2 rounds left in the round robin, they decided that we would have a playoff with the top 4 teams. The coaches of the top four teams agreed to end the tournament before the playoffs. It was clear that Hoover, being undefeated, had won. I couldn't get the folks at UA to understand that it looks very bad when you decide the playoff structure after the tournament has already begun. I can only imagine how unfair it would have been to Hoover if they had gone undefeated and then been subjected to an arbitrary playoff where they had lost. Tournament format should be decided and implicitly explained BEFORE the first match is played!!!
Again, this is something I assumed that my superiors had already figured out before-hand. Had I known that we didn't have a definite playoff structure before the tournament started, I would most certainly have told them to come up with one. I didn't realize that the whole "wanting to play as many rounds as possible" mindset some teams have goes completely out the window when you're playing in a tournament that is so poorly run.
quizbowllee wrote:3) Where was the advertisement for this tournament? Why is the communication so terrible? Last year, Alabama was awarded the bid to host this tournament and flaked out at the last minute, leaving the tournament in jeopardy. We at Brindlee Mountain agreed to step in and save the tournament. We had three weeks to prepare for the tournament, but I saturated the board with information, called coaches, sent e-mails and faxes, and basically got the word out as much as possible. We had 16 teams attend on three weeks notice. Alabama knew since at least August that they were hosting, made no announcements, and only had 10 teams in attendance. We are trying to grow pyramidal tournaments in Alabama and we desperately need more exposure for major events like the NAQT State Tournament. We had to BEG for information about this tournament.
I hate to keep passing the blame on, but this is another thing I assumed our president was taking care of. In fact, the only excuse I've been offering is that it is others' faults, and that's just not fair. I am a part of this organization and should know what is going on. I can remember tournaments run poorly (but still better than this one) and getting more angry than the teams at this year's NAQT State were. I thank all of you for your patience through what was probably the worst-run Alabama NAQT State tournament. I can only promise that I personally will make sure that something like this doesn't happen again at a UA tournament.

EDIT: Quote mishaps.
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Re: NAQT Alabama Championship

Post by acmagee »

Andrew Magee
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University of Alabama
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