by tomoore » Wed Apr 24, 2019 9:38 am
So, there's been discussion about MS NAQT state, but not any talk/perspective on HS NAQT state. Let's talk about that for a little bit.
I'll preface by saying that I think Greg did an overall good job as a tournament director. Given the number of fires that needed to be put out, I think Greg did as superb a job as he could in resolving said situations and keeping the train rolling. Unless I'm not familiar with anything else that supposedly sprung up, it doesn't appear that any issues arose because of Greg's tournament direction/preparation.
I have some particular concerns about the hosting site and how the hosting site's logistics ran in general for the tournament. Part of why I'm making this call out is that these issues would have been averted on Cortney's end through better prepration and just flat-out better planning – and thus I don't want States 2020 to go through the same route it did this year. They are as follows...
Field Size, Readers Corps – They Depend on Another!
- So, I personally don't understand how the field cap was 32 (high school) and 18 (middle school) given that there were probably not 25 good, experienced and (not the least importantly) expeditious readers to be had in the first place. And states level-experienced means, at minimum, having done multiple pyramidal events. Sorry. It's true. And I also don't understand why there wasn't a true registration deadline, or, at the least, some attempt to have stemmed the high school field at 30 when there were apparent fluctuations at 29, 30, and 31 teams within a week of the tournament. A 32 team tournament with four preliminary brackets of eight can be done and isn't exactly problematic, but you have to have 16 thoroughbred horses that can pull the seven round cart to the finish line in a prompt fashion – reading super fast isn't what's important, its being able to get the round in and out by cutting out all the stops and reading at a States Level Pace and Quality. And, I guess, even if there are not 16 top-tier readers in the high school bracket (there weren't), the preliminary seven rounds could have been pushed through a lot earlier had there been well-thought out reading assignments made before the tournament, but that didn't happen because...
the reading assignments were done ad hoc, ten minutes before Round 1
by Cortney just going down the list of readers and pairing them to rooms just by going down the list of rooms. This can be somewhat permissible and practical if its a small local fall tournament with like 12-16 teams, although never ideal nor wise, but not a tournament with seven preliminary rounds on hard questions all-the-while hosting a field of 32 teams from all sorts of rather long distances traveled. And this backfired because, if you look at the list of readers (it's in the tournament updates sheet that is somewhere here), you'll notice that Alex Connor, Joe Bellas, Peter Bergman and I all had our names in order above and top another – the ninth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth rooms on the list were the next ones that needed assigned – so four of the best six readers in the field ended up in the same morning bracket. So, given that other brackets weren't nearly as deep with reader promptness and strength, there was significant lagging between the conclusion of our bracket and the last bracket to finish up. Not good, for many reasons including the rebracketing and all of the stats/afternoon formation, but also because of the food situation...
which was bad, because some teams had to wait insufferably long times to eat the pizzas they ordered because supposedly it was miscalculated what time the preliminaries would be over – a snafu that is also obviously complicated by the fact its a massive order. This sort of begs the question on whether or not, in retrospect, teams should have even ordered pizza and instead made the ten minute drive to the food options off of the 36/37 exit for 71. Some teams apparently did not eat until 1:45-2pm – if indeed the case, that is Not Good, and the lunch arrangement (like the two other complaints above) doesn't fall on Greg's feet but rather Cortney's.
Moore, T;
reader, Southeast Region and statewide (2015-present);
ex-player, William V. Fisher Catholic HS... allegedly (2010-2014);