Team Virginia @ Panasonic

[STPickrell]

OK, I just talked to the person in charge there, and she said there is still time for a Team Virginia to register. Basically, any school from Virginia that reads this board and hasn't embarrassed themselves at a tournament can form the core of the team. I will also be emailing the coaches @ Radford and Charlottesville (A and AA champs).

My only condition is that you advertise and hold some sort of public tryout so people around the state can play.

Interested teams have until Friday, 7pm, to email me at shawn underscore pickrell at yahoo dot com (use the correct punctuation marks of course.) I will post teams interested in going.

Once that's done I will hold a poll where voters list their choices 1-2-3, with #1 receiving 3 points, #2 receiving 2 points, and #3 receiving 1 point. You can't vote for your own school and poll points for each school will be (number of points) divided by (number of ballots minus ballots from your school.) Top average point-getter gets the right to form the core of the team.

A parent is allowed to be the coach.

I'm not sure of the costs; I hope some of the TJ/Gov people can help.

If someone wants to take the "guardianship" of Team Virginia from me, please let me know. My only condition is that we don't go back to the old system where the winner of a private school league got to go. (For the record I was the "VHSL representative" Dr. Barnes said had emailed him.)

[Frater Taciturnus]

OK, I just talked to the person in charge there, and she said there is still time for a Team Virginia to register. Basically, any school from Virginia that reads this board and hasn't embarrassed themselves at a tournament can form the core of the team. I will also be emailing the coaches @ Radford and Charlottesville (A and AA champs).

My only condition is that you advertise and hold some sort of public tryout so people around the state can play.

OOOH! Pick me!

(Oh and please define "embarassed ourselves"...)

[Zip Zap Rap Pants]

I'm not sure of the costs; I hope some of the TJ/Gov people can help.

Aside from format hatred, from reading the Panasonic thread it sounds like they aren't that interested in paying around 3 g's for it, but I can't speak for them of course.

In the future I hope some sort of state-wide quizbowl panel/organization/federation can form to recognize a 6 player all star team that may/may not be the Panasonic team, depending on whether they can or want to go. In order to keep such a group from having absolute power, the all-VA team selection could have rules such as at least one member of the VHSL AAA championship team getting in and at least one member of the NAQT state championship open division team getting in (with the additive property in force - if one team wins both they are guaranteed 2 spots). Then perhaps at NAQT states or someplace sometime there could be tryouts on the PAC format or NAQT (since extra sets will be available right there) but with 4 individuals playing each other rather than 4 teams, and if you limit it to 32 then play single elim after two rounds two players will be left, and perhaps this way or another way through tryouts 2 more players will be selected, leaving 2 wildcards for this theoretical group to select as the at-large players. NAQT states would likely have to be moved [edit: forward] for this though, since PAC likes to have their money by late April.

Perhaps such an organization could serve other functions as well, such as informing all hs teams through an all-encompassing mailing list of upcoming tournaments in the state, and perhaps this could raise the profile of NAQT states as well (along with the tryout thing I mentioned earlier). Maybe it could have influence on the college level too by bringing some of those Southwest VA teams besides SVU and Tech out of the dark ages and presenting a "team of the year" award or other honors (or dishonors - ie "most hungover quizbowler," "most expletive-employing question writer").

[Matt Weiner]

This seems like a lot of effort to go to in support of a horrible money pit of a tournament. Maybe you can tie this poll and any funding you can line up to attendance at NAQT or NSC instead?

[Zip Zap Rap Pants]

Radford and Charlottesville (A and AA champs).

Whoa there, Radford was the runner up, not the champion. George Mason won group A.

[STPickrell]

Radford and Charlottesville (A and AA champs).

Whoa there, Radford was the runner up, not the champion. George Mason won group A.

Corrected -- I am sending the note to the coaches @ George Mason and Heritage (AA runners-up).

Aside from format hatred, from reading the Panasonic thread it sounds like they aren't that interested in paying around 3 g's for it, but I can't speak for them of course.

Whoops, misphrasing there. I meant to say that they could give a better estimate of the costs involved.

This seems like a lot of effort to go to in support of a horrible money pit of a tournament. Maybe you can tie this poll and any funding you can line up to attendance at NAQT or NSC instead?

I don't have any funding. This is strictly regarding PAC -- if you think it is horrible, don't go. If there is no interest from circuit-regular Virginia teams we can always return to the old system of whoever won that private school league gets to go.

OOOH! Pick me! Laughing

(Oh and please define "embarassed ourselves"...)

I'd define "embarrassed themselves" as in going 0 and whatever and not coming within, or breaking, 100 points in any matches.

BTW, is this an expression of interest?

[First Chairman]

The cost for registration is in the neighborhood of between 2000-3000$. I'd check the website for the tournament to see the reg fees, which includes housing and the passes at the Contemporary.

I feel for you; North Carolina doesn't have a system or financial support to raise that much money to send an all-star team either. Our previous system was to just send the NCSSM team, which obviously isn't the fairest system out there. On the flip side, it was much easier to deal with the financial issues since it came out of the education budget that way.

[Frater Taciturnus]

OOOH! Pick me! Laughing

(Oh and please define "embarassed ourselves"...)

I'd define "embarrassed themselves" as in going 0 and whatever and not coming within, or breaking, 100 points in any matches.

BTW, is this an expression of interest?[/quote]

Frankly, Im unfamiliar with the format, and that was mostly with an invisible </sarcasm>. I definately agree with MM's all-star idea. I mean, everything else has all-district and all-region awards (Drama has individual acting awards, even). I think that i will be out of the country at the time though.

[STPickrell]

The coach @ George Mason (single A champs, who lost by a double digit margin once or twice all season) has expressed some interest, but he's not sure if his team wants to go, and then would have to secure funding. They did pretty well at the Walter Johnson tournament as well ... I will post more here.

[jbarnes112358]

The coach @ George Mason (single A champs, who lost by a double digit margin once or twice all season) has expressed some interest, but he's not sure if his team wants to go, and then would have to secure funding. They did pretty well at the Walter Johnson tournament as well ... I will post more here.

That's the key...securing funding. With so many better tournaments on which to blow a bunch of money (i.e., PACE and NAQT), it will be difficult to get the best possible teams to participate in Panasonic without a funding source.

How are most states funded? Are the players coughing up their own money to represent their states? Unless a team has a high probability of success (like team Virginia of a couple of years back), and really expects to finish in the money, it will hardly be worth the cost for many.

[David Riley]

Illinois' coaches' association pays a large percentage of the cost, the students pay the remainder (airfare plus $300). We managed to secure corporate sponsorship this year, but although we are investigating other sources, frw sponsors will pay for a maximum of six people plus coaches.

In the past ten years, we have placed second, third (twice), and fourth. IMNSHO, we are much more likely to win the gold as an all-star team; only a handful of Illinois teams have the potential to do well at nationals in NAQT or PACE, because only this handful of teams are competitive at a national level. These few (New Trier, Bloomington, etc.) are competitive because they have balanced teams with a depth of knowledge. I think Illinois would have more competitive teams if only they didn't subscribe to the "that will never come up" philosophy, played more pyramidal questions, and were more competitive locally (many of our teams don't compete outside of their region and thus have no basis for comparison).

[Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN)]

In Missouri the coaches association pays for about half and the individual students pay for their remaining $250 (it might be a little more now because we need an extra room for a girl). So it's pretty reasonable for us.

I (a) agree that Panasonic is not real quizbowl (but I'll still do it if it means I stack that ca$h). However I (b) think that it's a total waste to go if you don't use an all-star team, because they let you and it's the best way to get the best result. Even if your all-star team ends up being from only one or two schools (see VA 2005). I'd rather get the money than go with my regular teammates.

[Zip Zap Rap Pants]

(but I'll still do it if it means I stack that ca$h).

C.R.E.A.M. get the money, dolla dolla bill y'all