The Quizbowl Resource Center

Ummm... Hmmm.... There are high school teams on here.

I didn't vote. I barely keep up with the college game any more. But, I have to wonder about having high school teams represented on the College Poll. Don't get me wrong: I in NO WAY am doubting State College's and Maggie Walker's ability to beat many (most) college teams. But... this is a COLLEGE poll. It's for college teams. They aren't college teams. They are high school teams. Granted, they are high school teams who occasionally compete in college tournaments. But, I'm sort of concerned about the "slippery slope" that might begin. Are the lines between the high school circuit and the college circuit starting to fade? There were a significant number of high school teams at ACF Fall, for example. Will high school teams be eligible for an ACF or NAQT National College Title? Will a high school's competing is such an event affect their eligibility to compete at HSNCT? PACE? Should it?

I'm not sure how I feel about this yet, but I thought I would throw it out there. It is possible that this post and discussion belongs in the high school forum instead of the college forum. I'm not sure where to post it. Ironically, that conundrum speaks to the entire issue at hand....

quizbowllee wrote:Ummm... Hmmm.... There are high school teams on here.

I didn't vote. I barely keep up with the college game any more. But, I have to wonder about having high school teams represented on the College Poll. Don't get me wrong: I in NO WAY am doubting State College's and Maggie Walker's ability to beat many (most) college teams. But... this is a COLLEGE poll. It's for college teams. They aren't college teams. They are high school teams. Granted, they are high school teams who occasionally compete in college tournaments. But, I'm sort of concerned about the "slippery slope" that might begin. Are the lines between the high school circuit and the college circuit starting to fade? There were a significant number of high school teams at ACF Fall, for example. Will high school teams be eligible for an ACF or NAQT National College Title? Will a high school's competing is such an event affect their eligibility to compete at HSNCT? PACE? Should it?

I'm not sure how I feel about this yet, but I thought I would throw it out there. It is possible that this post and discussion belongs in the high school forum instead of the college forum. I'm not sure where to post it. Ironically, that conundrum speaks to the entire issue at hand....

Noted 2009 high school senior Ike Jose was eligible because he was taking courses at a local college, and won the Division II ACF National title.

I do not see why this should be an issue. In many areas, high schoolers take one or two college courses. Since they are still fully enrolled in high school, I think such players should still be allowed to compete at high school national tournaments. If you're Basileus, however...

As a voter who ranked State College and Maggie Walker, I simply judged them in respect to the other collegiate teams, knowing that they were/are high school teams who compete at collegiate tournaments. I actually think there's an interesting discussion about the blurred lines between college/high school, which has had in my opinion positive and negative results, but perhaps that's a different thread.

Cheynem wrote:.... I actually think there's an interesting discussion about the blurred lines between college/high school, which has had in my opinion positive and negative results, but perhaps that's a different thread.

I suppose that this is my current position on the issue, as well. I think it best that this discussion take place sooner than later.

quizbowllee wrote:

Cheynem wrote:.... I actually think there's an interesting discussion about the blurred lines between college/high school, which has had in my opinion positive and negative results, but perhaps that's a different thread.

I suppose that this is my current position on the issue, as well. I think it best that this discussion take place sooner than later.

I agree, but if i did vote on this i would have clearly put both SC and Gov as high as they are (SC possibly higher).

The blurred lines worry me, as the gap between good HS teams and elite HS teams is already wide, and that gap is beginning to widen more every year.

So? If a high school team is so intellectually curious that they want to get good at college quizbowl, then the only "negative" there is that they are going to be beating everyone else by hundreds more points then they might have otherwise. Every argument about how the gap is widening too far already, and that high school teams being so good they kick the shit out of college teams means the college players are demoralized is a bunch of whiny nonsense that is not actually a negative. There is no need to have this discussion, sooner or later, other than to drive home that you all are wrong.

This might be an issue of difficulty perspective. For example, I really wouldn't be surprised if State College beat Chicago A if we played on a high school or Fall packet - I'd actually probably expect it - but on a Nats packet, maybe some of the college teams listed below them would be expected to win (note "maybe" - I haven't seen this year's State College team so I might be wrong). Also, people's ability to forget and mix-up the good West Coast teams continues to amuse.

Jeremy Gibbs Free Energy wrote:So? If a high school team is so intellectually curious that they want to get good at college quizbowl, then the only "negative" there is that they are going to be beating everyone else by hundreds more points then they might have otherwise. Every argument about how the gap is widening too far already, and that high school teams being so good they kick the shit out of college teams means the college players are demoralized is a bunch of whiny nonsense that is not actually a negative. There is no need to have this discussion, sooner or later, other than to drive home that you all are wrong.

Some of my concerns are less about being a whiny puss and more about the logistics. There are considerably more high school teams out there than there are college teams. If more and more high school teams decide to attend college tournaments, it could get out of hand. Take ACF Fall, for example. Had this tournament been held closer to Brindlee Mountain, I likely would have taken my team. We are nowhere near as good as State College or Maggie Walker. But, I do think we could be competitive with at least the Div. II field.

My concern is that more and more high school teams might want to attend college tournaments in the future. This is the "slippery slope" I was referring to in my earlier post. What happens when there are more high school teams at college tournaments than there are college teams? Will these tournament still be considered "College Tournaments?" Should they be? Should ACF (for example) Tournaments have a High School Division? Do hosts have the resources, staff, and facilities to add more and more high school teams in lieu of college teams? Should a college tournament host turn away high school teams in order to make room for college teams if space is filling or is limited? Do college teams take priority? Should only certain high school teams be allowed in this case? Would that be fair? Also, consider eligibility.... Does experience playing in a college tournament while on a high school team count against a player's eligibility in Novice, Div. II, Community College, etc. events once that player is actually on a college team?

These are more primary concerns - not that we're going to get our asses handed to us by State College. That will happen right now regardless of if they attend college tournaments.

Jeremy Gibbs Free Energy wrote:So? If a high school team is so intellectually curious that they want to get good at college quizbowl, then the only "negative" there is that they are going to be beating everyone else by hundreds more points then they might have otherwise. Every argument about how the gap is widening too far already, and that high school teams being so good they kick the shit out of college teams means the college players are demoralized is a bunch of whiny nonsense that is not actually a negative. There is no need to have this discussion, sooner or later, other than to drive home that you all are wrong.

Sure. The problem that i was trying to get to that i didn't think i had to explicitly state was that the elite teams in HS already complain about what tournaments are "too easy" that are in fact just the right difficulty for the average HS team. And as the elite teams have more say, more coverage, and more influence, i fear that their words will be taken seriously by too many writers, leading "regular difficulty" of HS to increase and leave the perfectly average and slightly above average teams in the dust. This should not happen.

SC and Gov and anyone else can attend whatever college events they want. I actually think it's really cool, and have told my players that they are welcome to go to open events as individuals or a college event as a team if they feel ready. But for so so many schools, this is not possible or practical, and i don't want the elite teams dictating the pace of quizbowl on a national level when it comes to difficulty.

Does experience playing in a college tournament while on a high school team count against a player's eligibility in Novice, Div. II, Community College, etc. events once that player is actually on a college team?

It doesn't, unless the high schooler is playing for a college due to dual enrollment.
I do not believe that high school teams attending college events will ever get out of hand - for one thing, the high school coach can be made to staff if that team otherwise is unable to play due to field size concerns. This is something that college quizbowl does not have as a luxury otherwise, due to the nature of how our setup works. Secondly, there is the simple fact that the audience for college play is pretty much limited to the teams that want to do well at nationals, and possibly teams with a coach that played in college and knows the benefits. Unless I'm missing something, those populations will never be really that large.

Sure. The problem that i was trying to get to that i didn't think i had to explicitly state was that the elite teams in HS already complain about what tournaments are "too easy" that are in fact just the right difficulty for the average HS team. And as the elite teams have more say, more coverage, and more influence, i fear that their words will be taken seriously by too many writers, leading "regular difficulty" of HS to increase and leave the perfectly average and slightly above average teams in the dust. This should not happen.

There is already a backlash against this in high school writing and discourse. As long as people who actually know what the right difficulty is keep writing it, it's easy to yell down the elite high schoolers who are unable to unable to comprehend that most players aren't as good as them. As long as people realize that high school players whining about the Dean's December coming up early in a tossup are whiny and not right, we will be OK.

quizbowllee wrote:My concern is that more and more high school teams might want to attend college tournaments in the future. This is the "slippery slope" I was referring to in my earlier post. What happens when there are more high school teams at college tournaments than there are college teams?

There are some truly elite high school teams out there, but I can't see high school teams of that caliber becoming common enough to actually outnumber college teams in any one given region (insert joke about Southwest quizbowl here).

We had to turn away college teams from our ACF Fall site because we had a very limited number of rooms - there were multiple high school teams already in the tournament that had registered earlier. The issues Lee brings up already exist and should be addressed, probably in another thread.

Perhaps this is elitist, but my opinion is that: at any normal college tournament, if there's too much demand (a not-terribly-common scenario because supply will increase with demand), then the best teams get to play (unless they signed up really late or something). If those happen to be HS teams, I'm fine with that. (and btw, for most tournaments - if those teams happen to be composed of people in their mid-40s, I'm fine with that too). If a certain site just can't accommodate everyone, it's in the best interests of competition and fairness for the best teams to play.

The solution for any excluded teams is to get better. Isn't that the incentive we want?


On the rankings issue, I have serious doubts about high school teams on higher-level packets - the weakening effect is pretty logarithmic.

quizbowllee wrote:Are the lines between the high school circuit and the college circuit starting to fade?

Yes, absolutely.

quizbowllee wrote:Will high school teams be eligible for an ACF or NAQT National College Title? Will a high school's competing is such an event affect their eligibility to compete at HSNCT? PACE? Should it?

High school teams are already eligible for ACF. They are not presently permitted to play SCT/ICT.

NAQT has had internal discussions about changing this. Consensus was that if we do this, we would let high school teams play in Division I, but not Division II. (Dismiss the argument if you like, Charlie, but we do believe that losing to an elite high school team by many hundreds of points is likely to demoralize a novice college team.) This would, hypothetically, have no impact on HSNCT eligibility. It might have some impact on DII eligibility at the college level; we believe that any hs players motivated enough to attend DI tournaments would likely skip DII as college freshmen anyway.

marnold wrote:We had to turn away college teams from our ACF Fall site because we had a very limited number of rooms - there were multiple high school teams already in the tournament that had registered earlier. The issues Lee brings up already exist and should be addressed, probably in another thread.

I think this is a pretty rare case. I don't think I've ever hosted a tournament where having more teams would be a bad thing. Certainly for a few select tournaments (mainly ACF Fall) in a few select regions this is something of a problem, but in most regions for most tournaments, I'd be happy to have the field consisting of more elite high school teams.

Yeah, it's not like there are 30 team college tournaments every weekend. Our ACF Fall site had 9 teams, and if a high school had come, I think we would have gladly taken them. I'd hazard a guess that the number of college tournaments with fewer than 20 teams is at least 85% (with one being the invite only ICT).

Losing badly to a team with grad students, or losing badly to a team with good novices, or losing badly to a better team period are all potentially demoralizing to novice college players, but you don't see us deciding to not let better teams come to tournaments (as long as they aren't eligibility based events). If you lose to a good high school team there is absolutely no difference, and if you are so immature as to not be able to handle losing to a better team, then I don't see why we should be trying to accommodate you.

Bentley Like Beckham wrote:

marnold wrote:We had to turn away college teams from our ACF Fall site because we had a very limited number of rooms - there were multiple high school teams already in the tournament that had registered earlier. The issues Lee brings up already exist and should be addressed, probably in another thread.

I think this is a pretty rare case. I don't think I've ever hosted a tournament where having more teams would be a bad thing. Certainly for a few select tournaments (mainly ACF Fall) in a few select regions this is something of a problem, but in most regions for most tournaments, I'd be happy to have the field consisting of more elite high school teams.

It hasn't been a rare thing at Chicago; we've had three or four other tournaments where we were very concerned about having enough space to accommodate all teams over the past couple of years (though we only had to turn teams, where by teams I mean Michigan again, away one other time, and none of those past issues were due to HS teams). As more HS teams start to play college tournaments, I think this is going to be more and more of an issue (particularly because it's not just super-elite HS teams that want to play college tournaments, more like good and ambitious teams) and it's going to have to be taken into account when selecting sites for ACF Fall and other tournaments where high school teams show up in any kind of force. Contra Ryan, I'm uncomfortable ever cutting a college team from a field in favor of a HS team (or for any reason), though I'm fine with letting high schoolers play if there's no space crunch.

I think it's probably about time to move the discussion of HS players at college tournaments to a separate thread, and I will attempt to do that now.

Yeah, I completely disagree with what Ryan said. If we had been turned away from a college tournament in our first year of existence, in favor of a high school team, I would have been pretty pissed. It's not that I have anything against hs teams playing college tournaments, on the contrary, I think it is great. But the key factor is that high school teams can attend both high school and college tournaments, where as college teams can only attend college tournaments.

I also agree with what Jeff said about letting high school teams playing in SCT as DI teams. I think it is similiar to how Matt didn't let high school teams play at the VCU mirror of Delta Burke. The college novice audience and the really good high school teams who attend college tournaments audience are very different.

Jeremy Gibbs Free Energy wrote:Losing badly to a team with grad students, or losing badly to a team with good novices, or losing badly to a better team period are all potentially demoralizing to novice college players, but you don't see us deciding to not let better teams come to tournaments (as long as they aren't eligibility based events). If you lose to a good high school team there is absolutely no difference, and if you are so immature as to not be able to handle losing to a better team, then I don't see why we should be trying to accommodate you.

We believe that losing to an elite high school is qualitatively more demoralizing than simply losing to a team of other college freshmen who are better than you. Our Division II policy is essentially (as Aaron points out) the restriction Matt imposed on his Delta Burke thread:

Matt Weiner wrote:the type of high school teams interested in playing collegiate tournaments are not the target audience of this event

Note that high school teams are encouraged to attend high school events that use the DII SCT set.

I am almost positive that is not true Jeff (by which I mean your D2 Policy). I am sure that last year when Shantanu, Kurtis, and I were freshmen, Matt would have not permitted us to attend his novice event, but obviously we could (and did) play D2 at NAQT Sectionals. Until you can explain to me why a player being too young is suddenly not a qualification for playing Division 2, I am going to continue to say this policy plan is very wrongheaded (and that's not even getting into why, again, a team losing badly to a better team is a ridiculous reason to punish teams from high schools).
Checking the VCU Novice thread, yes, I am right. VCU would have not allowed many freshmen from playing that NAQT would have accepted, so I don't think your justification for singling out high schoolers holds up using those criteria.

Okay, I'm not against having some pro-college-team rules for novice tournaments. I concede that the "college novice team" and the "elite hs team" are two very different things.

But otherwise, I don't think any team or person should be "pissed" at being excluded from a tourney. They should be motivated.

To the utmost degree possible, I oppose turning any team away from any tournament (except for restricted eligibility events, which I think should be kept to a minimum). If there has to be a criterion on which to exclude, I'd rather it be "who's the best" than any other more arbitrary criterion.

Though, like I said, supply should increase with demand and (Chicago's issues aside), capacity problems should not be terribly common in the foreseeable future.

But otherwise, I don't think any team or person should be "pissed" at being excluded from a tourney. They should be motivated.

What? How does this make any sense?

Jeremy Gibbs Free Energy wrote:Checking the VCU Novice thread, yes, I am right. VCU would have not allowed many freshmen from playing that NAQT would have accepted, so I don't think your justification for singling out high schoolers holds up using those criteria.

Because VCU was hosting a November novice tournament whose intent was "let's introduce new players to quizbowl." DII ICT is trying to determine a national champion.

Jeremy Gibbs Free Energy wrote:Until you can explain to me why a player being too young is suddenly not a qualification for playing Division 2, I am going to continue to say this policy plan is very wrongheaded (and that's not even getting into why, again, a team losing badly to a better team is a ridiculous reason to punish teams from high schools).

Because "age" isn't the relevant criterion here: it's "high schoolers can attend high school tournaments on these questions." We don't believe it "punishes" anyone to have separate fields for "good high schools" and "novice college teams."

aarcoh wrote:

But otherwise, I don't think any team or person should be "pissed" at being excluded from a tourney. They should be motivated.

What? How does this make any sense?

Presumably, Ryan would encourage teams to reply to "you're not good enough for our tournament" with "OK, we'll show you and get better". Like the proverbial man who is rejected for not knowing how to dance, and then comes back after learning to dance and asks how you like him now.

(Of course, playing tournaments is one of the premier ways to get better...)

Also, my main point was in terms of being rejected in favor of a high school team, when high school teams have the opportunity to play at both college and high school events.

If I were (god forbid) hosting ACF Fall and had no guidance from ACF on how to handle the HS team or college team for final spot dilemma, I'd probably pick the college team. My reasoning is that since my interest lies in maximizing profit for my team over time, I want as many healthy teams as possible in my region. A marginal college team would probably be severely set back if they were excluded from ACF Fall. They would be unable to experience the joys of what is (most likely) going to be the most enjoyable tournament of the year for them. On the other hand, a high school team would have copious high school tournaments to fall back on, and if they're ambitious enough to play Fall they'll probably also stick around for Regionals or whatever else I'm hosting that year, whereas the marginal college club could potentially get discouraged from missing Fall.

Whig's Boson wrote:

aarcoh wrote:

But otherwise, I don't think any team or person should be "pissed" at being excluded from a tourney. They should be motivated.

What? How does this make any sense?

Presumably, Ryan would encourage teams to reply to "you're not good enough for our tournament" with "OK, we'll show you and get better". Like the proverbial man who is rejected for not knowing how to dance, and then comes back after learning to dance and asks how you like him now.

But... How can a team "prove" that they are better if they aren't allowed to compete in a tournament until they do so???

Catch-22, anyone?

Look, I'm a high school coach. I might very well take my team to ACF Fall or Winter sometime in the future. But, if there's not enough room, then I definitely think that college teams should take precedence over high school teams - even if the high school team is State College and the college team that wants in is Backwoods Community College. As a high school coach, I would understand that colleges come first at college tournaments.

No Rules Westbrook wrote:To the utmost degree possible, I oppose turning any team away from any tournament (except for restricted eligibility events, which I think should be kept to a minimum). If there has to be a criterion on which to exclude, I'd rather it be "who's the best" than any other more arbitrary criterion.

What about, as in Chicago's case, a tournament like ACF Fall? It's not novice-only, to be sure, but it's a valuable tournament for novice teams or players. If Young Team X is excluded from the ACF Fall of its members' freshman year because Illinois A is better, I can't see Young Team X being all too chuffed about it. Furthermore, arguably, Young Team X would benefit much more than Illinois A from playing ACF Fall (or even Winter or Regionals) in terms of having fun, learning more, and being encouraged to pursue quizbowl more avidly.

First-come, first-served seems like a good criterion to me if physical space is limited.

EDIT: Yeah, I agree with the people who say that for a college tournament, if teams have to be cut because of space, it should be high school teams. However, the hosts should set up a cutoff date for registration in this sort of circumstance so that there's no way some poor high school team finds itself booted from the tournament six or seven days before it takes place.

quizbowllee wrote:

Whig's Boson wrote:

aarcoh wrote:

But otherwise, I don't think any team or person should be "pissed" at being excluded from a tourney. They should be motivated.

What? How does this make any sense?

Presumably, Ryan would encourage teams to reply to "you're not good enough for our tournament" with "OK, we'll show you and get better". Like the proverbial man who is rejected for not knowing how to dance, and then comes back after learning to dance and asks how you like him now.

But... How can a team "prove" that they are better if they aren't allowed to compete in a tournament until they do so???

Catch-22, anyone?

Look, I'm a high school coach. I might very well take my team to ACF Fall or Winter sometime in the future. But, if there's not enough room, then I definitely think that college teams should take precedence over high school teams - even if the high school team is State College and the college team that wants in is Backwoods Community College. As a high school coach, I would understand that colleges come first at college tournaments.

Just to be clear: I'm not advocating that position, I'm merely trying to be helpful by explaining the ways of Ryan to man.

Bruce uses his deep play method to observe the wild Westbrook at work and translate it for the rest of us.

Yeah, I don't see that most tournaments (barring novice events) should be any different than a golf or tennis tournament, let's say. Those kinds of events accept the best field they can get, and turn others away. The solution for those turned away is to practice and get better.

That's as good of an incentive as you can hope for, and my assumption is that supply will meet demand in terms of tournaments teams can play at.


n.b.: I'd expect nothing less than Bruce trotting in to explicate my free-market economics argument.

Because VCU was hosting a November novice tournament whose intent was "let's introduce new players to quizbowl." DII ICT is trying to determine a national champion.

Then how is the intent of VCU's rules relevant to your policy decisions if your two goals are completely different? Look, I'm fine with saying high schoolers can't play Sectionals or ICT because it's only open to college teams. What I can't wrap my head around is how a team of people who are too young to be in college could somehow be told they are only eligible to play in the higher division despite them being younger and less experienced than the competitors in the Division 2 field (which is absolutely the case, given the fact that D2 will theoretically allow teams such as Ben Cohen-Guy T.-Ian Eppler for Brown, or Zhao Zhang-Siva S.-Sam Peterson for Harvard). I think this is certainly punishing people for being too young, and is unfair.

Your argument that high schoolers can play the D2 set elsewhere also does not hold up - it is in NAQT's power to either refuse to let high school tournaments use that set, or refuse teams that play the actual sectional to play in a high school mirror of it, no differently than how NAQT doesn't let the same team play 2 tournaments on 1 IS set.

No Rules Westbrook wrote:Yeah, I don't see that most tournaments (barring novice events) should be any different than a golf or tennis tournament, let's say. Those kinds of events accept the best field they can get, and turn others away. The solution for those turned away is to practice and get better.

That's as good of an incentive as you can hope for, and my assumption is that supply will meet demand in terms of tournaments teams can play at.

Again, though, how does a team show that they have gotten better if they are turned away?

Well, I'd anticipate that, if we ever lived in a world where it was common for willing college teams to be turned away, one of a few self-correcting things would happen, including:

1. Hosts would find a way to accommodate larger numbers of teams instead of turning down money, since noone likes turning down money.
2. There would emerge a greater number of tournaments to meet the increased demand, and some of those tourneys would be for "novice college teams only" (a Division II junior circuit!) and/or they would be "less prestigious events" (Tier II!)

A few exceptions aside, I don't think we're anywhere close to a world where these things would need to happen. But, they seem like the natural responses to overflow problems in the "top circuit."

The overflow problems tend to happen in tournaments like ACF Fall, which are not in the "top circuit."

For any regular tournament, if the response is good and there is a limit to how many teams the host school can handle, it is the host's responsibility to take teams on a first come first serve basis and make it clear to teams that they have a limited window of opportunity for any interested teams to sign up. If you don't have your team together enough to know that you are going to send a team to a tournament until the field has already filled, then that is your fault and not the fault of the tournament director, whose first responsibility is to guarantee as much money as possible to his team. A worse quality team offering up guaranteed cash is going to further that goal better than a disorganized but better team that is not guaranteed to attend, so the only logical way to handle this is to give teams a chance to enter, then cut off the field once they've had their chance. Unless there are special rules forbidding high schoolers from the tournament, I think this should be handled the same way for them as well.

Not That Kind of Christian!! wrote: First-come, first-served seems like a good criterion to me if physical space is limited.

EDIT: Yeah, I agree with the people who say that for a college tournament, if teams have to be cut because of space, it should be high school teams. However, the hosts should set up a cutoff date for registration in this sort of circumstance so that there's no way some poor high school team finds itself booted from the tournament six or seven days before it takes place.

I'd have to disagree with a "first-come, first-served" policy. Such a policy would negatively impact schools that begin later or teams that start a team in the middle of the school year and have to go through the start-up process in addition to finding tournaments where they could play at. In fact, I think several deadlines were pushed back because of school's that start later in the year, but I cannot remember which tournament this was for.

As to a cutoff date for registration, this would only make sense if a particular host was expecting a large field for a tournament (such as ACF Fall). In other cases, especially when its a tournament that is already written (say, MUT or EFT), I would think that setting up a cutoff date (which would range between one and two weeks before the event depending on the host) is a bad idea. It reduces the potential income a host can receive and excludes teams from valuable experience. Yes, it does suck adding teams last minute and reworking the logistics, but presumably no host would run a tournament in which they allowed more teams to play than they had staff available.

I don't understand the premise of this thread at all. Why would high school teams playing college tournaments make high school quizbowl harder? Haven't we heard, from multiple people including NAQT members, that high school teams who find regular high school quizbowl insufficiently challenging should go play college tournaments rather than making high school quizbowl harder?

What does this have to do with who can "compete" in high school quizbowl? Why would it be any more work for Brindlee Mountain to get up to State College's level on ACF Fall questions than it would be to do so on NAQT HSNCT questions? Why are they even concerned about doing so if they don't plan to play college tournaments?

Where is this flood of high schools playing college tournaments going to come from so long as college tournaments remain harder than high school tournaments and scheduled at the same time? Why is this made-up invasion of college quizbowl a problem for high school coaches to solve?

Why aren't we looking at Chicago running out of room for an ACF Fall that more than 30 teams wanted to play and saying "hmm, I guess there should be an additional ACF Fall site in the Midwest next year" instead of swooping in with plans to either penalize the most motivated players of the future or kick out college teams who don't meet Ryan Westbrook's standard of quality for ACF Fall of all things?

I, of course, know the answers to all of these questions, and they don't reflect well on this thread.

By the way, let me be the first person to actually CONGRATULATE two high schools on their well-deserved ranking as two of the best collegiate teams in the country, rather than taking it as a premise to go off on an incomprehensible soapbox. This is a phenomenal achievement, and the members of the two teams (and the other HS teams who got votes) should be lauded for the work that went into it.

If teams are good enough to play up to the next level, then they shouldn't be prevented from doing so. If middle schoolers are good enough to compete on the high school level, then let them. If high schoolers are good enough to compete with college teams, then let them! Saying that top teams getting better by playing up is wrong because it makes quizbowl "harder" is just ridiculous. If a team or player works hard enough to be that good, other schools should be aspiring to be like them.

Well, yeah, my whole premise is that a natural response is to create more tournaments, i.e. a second midwestern ACF Fall.

While I will say that I am kind of shocked, bewildered, and even amazed that State College and Maggie Walker can beat Chris Ray, CMU, and VCU, they should be applauded if anything. I personally know Graham Moyer and Tommy Casalaspi and know them to be ones who work hard on their own to be successful at QB. I generally think both of them as intellectually curious, and if anything they (and their teams) don't deserve anything in this thread.

This thread began with a vague statement about a unification of college and high school circuits. Then it degenerated into a bunch of technical nonsense like "man, should we ban high schools if they are good and some community college wants to come?" that make it quite clear here that people harbor feelings toward the two aforementioned teams because they are ranked on a college poll, and subsequently believe they are becoming too good for the field. Don't get me wrong: I might be embarrassed to have been squeezed in the balls as Chris Ray had his at ACF Fall, Regardless, I don't think this is the right attitude to complain about it with some hilariously thinly veiled irrelevant questions.

Let me say this: If Dr. Barnes or Ms. Gittings were instituting a death march like policy to have high schoolers learn as much as they can through rote memorization, etc. in order to beat collegiate teams, then I would complain that Dr. Barnes and Ms. Gittings are violating the spirit of the collegiate game. The high school game has a much more learnable canon, and invitational tournaments do not go as far to seek leadins that show "pure true knowledge." As far as I can tell, and what I know of Tommy and Graham, (I don't really know the other teammates that well, I'm sorry!) Tommy and Graham are trying to learn as much as possible for competition purposes and because they like learning. They like to read (I can't speak for Tommy as I can for Graham, because I've actually played with him in a lit tournament,) and are interesting people to talk to if you ever just run into them at a tournament.

Instead of asking the question whether this so called merging of high school and colleges is an impending sign of a world of quizbowl where auto-da-fes are around every corner for teams that aren't that good, how about picturing a world of quizbowl, where regardless of age, you can start playing, start to learn the canon, start to get good, and Most Importantly open the path to intellectual stimulation by going out and learning the primary knowledge. I know its a bit idealistic, but I seriously think that if we had more people who asked these positive type of questions, we wouldn't be getting this type of mentality that you wuold see in places where people have less between the skull.

picturing a world of quizbowl, where regardless of age, you can start playing, start to learn the canon, start to get good

.

This is the vision of qb that I support. With a few exceptions (like "collegiate national tournament" events), the ideal world of this game should have nothing to do with whether you currently go to college, whether you've ever gone to college, whether you have a coach or not and how that coach chooses to conduct himself, or anything like that.

I don't care about violating or rewarding any hypothetical "spirit of the game." By and large, all this game should be concerned with is rewarding skill. If it comes in the person of Andrew Yaphe, great...if in the person of Tommy Casalaspi, great.

But, let's not jump the shark here - the fact that an elite HS team can snipe at an experienced player or two at ACF Fall isn't a huge surprise, nor is it much of a "ballbuster" of any of those players.

OK... Let me set the record straight right now before this gets more out-of-hand. I am NOT "thinly veiling" ANYTHING at all. I tried to make it apparent in my initial post that I was in no way trying to take away from the incredible accomplishments of State College and Maggie Walker. I also have no real problem with their attending college tournaments per se. I even noted that - had there been a closer ACF Fall - I would have taken my (far inferior) team.

My point is simply that this was a poll of the best COLLEGE TEAMS. High school teams, no matter how good they are, are NOT college teams. Period.

I also wanted to raise some of the questions inherent to more and more high school teams attending college events. Look back over the last few years - the trend is growing. It might not be "rampant" yet, but it happens. I was curious what the consensus on these questions is.

Finally, I don't appreciate anyone assuming that I am taking veiled pot shots at these teams. Believe me, if I had a problem with them, I would let it be known. I wouldn't veil it. Am I jealous of them? Damn right, I am. While I love the goofy fart-knockers I have on my team, I can only wish that they had the kind of dedication that the kids at State College, Maggie Walker, etc. have. The fact is that they don't. We're not going to be competitive at any level with those teams. If they want to go to every college tournament in the nation, more power to them. I still think that college teams should have first shot at attending college tournaments with limited capacity to accommodate teams. I also think that MOST college players and teams will agree with that sentiment.

quizbowllee wrote:.

My point is simply that this was a poll of the best COLLEGE TEAMS. High school teams, no matter how good they are, are NOT college teams. Period.

All of maggie walker's main players are also enrolled at VCU so if this is an actual issue I can change their listing to VCU B, assuming this will make this argument stop.

quizbowllee wrote: My point is simply that this was a poll of the best COLLEGE TEAMS. High school teams, no matter how good they are, are NOT college teams. Period.

According to the original post announcing the poll, it isn't a poll of just the best college teams. It appears to be called the "college poll" because it ranks teams based on people's opinions of their performances on college question sets, because most of the teams on it will always be college teams, to differentiate it from the high school poll, and because "The top 25 teams whose members all attend the same institution" is too unwieldy for a title.

Frater Taciturnus wrote:Feel free to vote for any B teams or High school teams that you feel are top 25 material.

(emphasis mine)

I echo Matt: State College and Maggie Walker are clearly very good teams that deserve to be in the top 25.

Why would you want to stop this argument? It's a perfectly lovely, legit argument.

quizbowllee wrote: My point is simply that this was a poll of the best COLLEGE TEAMS. High school teams, no matter how good they are, are NOT college teams. Period.

"college team" could also be defined as "team that plays college packets". If it quacks like a duck...