I know this thread has been sitting dormant for a while, but I was just reading through it now and feeling the need to make some comments. My apologies (and I can delete this if need be) if this thread has been inactive for too long.
Regarding Copley's coach, I haven't always agreed, but she's done more to bring a quizbowl foundation to over 600 Ohio schools than anyone else in the state. Agree with her, or not, about attending NAC; Copley's a good program, with a great coach, with excellent and motivated students. Granted, I'm still new to the larger, national picture. I will always listen and respect those who have done more for improving quizbowl, and who flat out know more than myself. But I think I can still offer an informed perspective based on experiences over the last couple years.
I always support promoting HSNCT (and NAQT tournaments in general...or really any tournament has has good pyramidal questions) ahead of anything affiliated with
. But, so far, I've only found one good way of getting more schools involved in good quizbowl. It's a painfully slow process, because people and schools are slow to change, but it's really the only way that I have found to work. If you want teams to attend the more efficient, ethical, and outright better tournaments, you don't do it with threats or telling adminstrators they should fail students if the quizbowl team continues attending NAC.Hawken, is a school in Ohio that only had funds to attend 1 national tournament a year, and it was always NAC. Until this year, when they started attending more NAQT tournaments in the area. The players started hearing from other teams how great HSNCT was, so the Hawken kids kept bringing it up to their coaches; about wanting to go to Atlanta this year. And other area coaches, who have gone to HSNCT, also reached out to Hawken's coaches, saying their money would be much better spent towards HSNCT, and how their players would enjoy it more. Finally, this year, Hawken is registered for HSNCT. But that's the process that needs to take place. It's slow, sometimes a grind when there is resistance, but it seems like the only true method.
It has to begin with having motivated and interested players. Now, granted, as a coach, I feel you need to be aware of all quizbowl going on in your area, and giving all options to your players...but you also need the players to be self-motivated to go to the tournaments. Unfortunately, many coaches don't want to expand beyond their league, or maybe attending the local tournaments once in a while, because it means more work for them. Maybe it is the antiquated way of doing things, and many coaches have been slow to warm to the idea of better quizbowl, like pyramidal questions, and tu/b. But you can't determine the "right" and "wrong" way to coaching based on whether a team goes to NAC, NSC, HSNCT, NHBB, or whatever tv shows they want to do. The only mark of a coach is, are your players learning? Are they having fun doing it? Are you seeing growth in the season? That's it, and everything else is just unnecessary drama.
When the right players, and coach, are in place...only then do you involve school administrations. Like some other posters, I was confused with how they were even brought up in this thread. If a team is independently funded, then there is no need to involve the administration, but that's a very select minority of teams. Still you only involve the administration when it comes to finances. Many of them do not know what quizbowl is, other than an extra-curricular activity for presumably their smartest students. They don't know, nor likely care about, the differences between Tournament A and Tournament B, or pyramidal questions an QU questions. The only quizbowl matters you bring school administrations into is the money, and that should be handled specifically by the coach at that school (or by the students if necessary).
