here are results

doubles
College Prep SS def. Westwood DE (David Emelianov)
3-0 (Nadia Arid, Jen Melin, Mischa O’Connell)
Strake Jesuit JD def. Winston Churchill AW (Allie Woodhouse)
3-0 (Nadia Arid, Becca Boyer, David Weeks)
Palo Alto TC def Meadows RF (Ryan Fink)
2-1 (Ryan Lawrence, Chris Theis*, Jason Zhou)
Northland Christian RD def Loyola TP (Tom Placido)
2-1(Jason Zhou, Chris Theis*, Rick Brundage)
Pflugerville TH def. Loyola BO (Bob Overing)
2-1 (Christian Tarsney, Graham Tierney*, Timothy Alderete)
Meadows EH def Keller KS (Katie Stasaski)
2-1 (Christian Tarsney, Katie Dessi*, Ryan Lawrence)
College Prep PM def Keller TF (Travis Fife)
2-1(Oliver Gappmeyer, Natalee Pei*, Rebar Niemi)
Cypress Falls BH def Kent Denver SM (Sam Mathews)
2-1( Rebar Niemi, Oliver Gappmeyer, Paul Dorasil*)
St Louis Park RS def Hockaday KD (Kay Dannenmaier)
3-0 (Becca Traber, Todd Newkirk, David Weeks)
Lynbrook HS def. St. Louis Park LS (Leah Shapiro)
3-0 (Becca Traber, Todd Newkirk, Jared Woods)
Blake JN def Putnam City North MK (Mobin Koohestani)
3-0 (Cole Oliver, Ben Clancy, Ryan Graham)
Flower Mound CH def Southlake Carroll MK (Michael Kohm)
3-0 (Ben Clancy, Chris Castillo, Graham Tierney)
Loyola AB def Apple Valley JG (John Granlund)
3-0 (Kamil Merchant, Daniel Imas, Jordan Lamothe)
Apple Valley LS def Loyola EK (Edward Kalinsky)
3-0 (Kamil Merchant, Daniel Imas, Jordan Lamothe)
Cypress Woods TJ def Bainbridge Island AT (Alex Teiche)
3-0(Kevin Coltin, Kristen Ray, Samin Agha)
Strake Jesuit SS def Pine Crest NG (Noah Grass)
3-0(Natalee Pei, Kristen Ray, Samin Agha)

octas
College Prep PM def Cy Woods TJ (Ty Joplin)
2-1 (Mischa O’Connell, Graham Tierney*, Rebar Niemi)
Cypress Falls BH def Pflugerville TH (Tillman Huett)
3-0 (Corbin Cass, Cole Oliver, Daniel Imas)
Northland Christian RD def Loyola AB (Adam Bistagne)
2-1 (Jason Zhou*, Sam Hamad, Jordan Lamothe)
Apple Valley LS def Palo Alto TC (Travis Chen)
2-1 (Natalee Pei, John Scoggin*, Ryan Lawrence)
Flower Mound CH def. Strake Jesuit JD (Jeremy Danger)
2-1 (Becca Traber*, Ben Clancy, Christian Tarsney)
Blake JN def Meadows EH (Ed Hendrickson)
3-0 (Chris Theis, Jared Woods, Rick Brundage)
College Prep SS def Strake Jesuit SS (Steffen Seitz)
2-1 (David Weeks, Nadia Arid*, Oliver Gappmeyer)
St. Louis Park RS def. Lynbrook HS (Haziq Siddiqi)
3-0 (Chris Castillo, Katie Dessi, Kamil Merchant)

quarters
College Prep SS def Flower Mound CH (Chase Hamilton)
3-0 (Christian Tarsney, Oliver Gappmeyer, Ryan Lawrence)
Blake JN def. St. Louis Park RS (Richard Shmikler)
2-1 (Todd Newkirk, Ben Clancy*, Cole Oliver)
Cypress Falls BH def. College Prep PM (Paige Mackenzie)
2-1 (Rebar Niemi*, Jason Zhou, David Weeks)
Apple Valley LS def. Northland Christian RD (Robbie Dillard)
3-0 (Sam Hamad, Jordan Lamothe, Nadia Arid)

semis
Cypress Falls BH def Blake JN (Juliet Nelson)
2-1 (Christian Tarsney*, Jen Melin, Graham Tierney)
College Prep SS def Apple Valley LS (Luke Stuttgen)
3-0 (Todd Newkirk, Oliver Gappmeyer, Kamil Merchant)

finals
College Prep SS def Cypress Falls BH (Brian Hodge)
4-1 (Christian Tarsney, Daniel Imas, Oliver Gappmeyer*, Natalee Pei, Kamil Merchant)

champion: College Prep SS (Sarah Sachs)

good job brian, and congrats to sarah on winning, steffen on his 1st career bid and jeremy on his qual.

Christian is right on all 8 counts, and I look forward to you structuring the online petition you mentioned. You have echoed my thoughts on this issue almost completely, but in a much more detailed way. My two beefs are with accountability and the need for either rule-changes (to reflect the tab error issue so that all debaters can make such a claim equally) or adherence to the rules in place. As I have also said, I think all debaters that have submitted at-large applications, whether they were accepted or waitlisted, should have their money returned to them, considering they submitted them under a pre-established set of guidelines.

I also strongly think that the at-large rankings should be made public, in order to both counter-balance the politicization of decision-making, and to make it possible for debaters and coaches to ask, "why is this student ranked ahead of my own?" While such claims may seem contentious, it helps spell out what individual coaches on the committee are looking for in an at-large application, which can help guide the decision to have kids apply in the future. I have asked this question of the at-large committee thus far regarding a student of mine, and the two responses I have received (I won't name names, but I trust that they weren't lying) were more or less along the lines of 'I ranked your student well, I don't understand how he was cumulatively ranked so low. I thought he was very deserving." Others have either not replied or side-stepped the question. This is problematic to me because of the total lack of accountability and tranparency, and appropriate steps need to be taken to lay down a foundation for a better future regarding these issues, rather than letting the decision-making remain so insular.

1) Jalon should not be allowed to attend, as per the rules. At-large apps should not be re-submitted, but instead, everyone behind Jalon should be bumped up one spot form their initial ranking.
2) All at-large applicants should have their money refunded to them, considering they were operating under a set of guidelines that have existed prior to the beginning of the season.
3) The waitlist needs to be publicized from here on out so that kids can gauge how long they're willing to wait to get in to the tournament.
4) From what I understand, not all members of the committee ranked Jalon as if he had a bid. I think everyone should be forthright and explain the rationale for whether they did or did not rank him, and why they chose to rank him above kids who acquired bids this season.

Kian, this website is ran, or at least, written by two members of the committee. A sizable portion of the committee also comments on this blog. There's no way all 9 of them are just oblivious to this discussion going on. Further, an email based discussion just reinforces the opacity of the issue at hand, which is not knowing what the rules are or how decisions regarding those rules were reached.

Attacking AT or Jalon or anyone else singularly, having this discussion over race, etc. distracts from the heart of the issue, which is the exception that was made for a student with no bids to be admitted to the toc again. A collective decision was made regarding this issue, and I think many of us would like to understand the rationale by which each committee member made their decision. This is one of the reasons I think two things need to happen:

1) the rules need to be adhered to, or edited. The exceptionalism that has occurred here is unfair to those who don't have coaches well-connected to the committee inasmuch as they don't know if they can send in an app (since the rules say not to) even if they've had tab errors affect their season. Clearly, given this has happened 2 times in 3 years, the committee is seriously concerned with this problem. As such, rules need to be developed (if change is going to occur) that spell out what tab errors merit consideration so that debaters not aided by someone with connections can also apply and, at least, be considered.

2) Transparency needs to be developed; specifically, we should know how debaters are seeded so that inquiry can be made into why decisions were made. That way, people can inquire as to how specific rankings were reached. The committee is making the tough decisions, and that sucks, but you chose to be there, and those decisions should be defended if someone inquires into the rationale behind them.

If there's a tab error regarding judge prefs, then why wouldn't one immediately go to tab and notify them of this problem to have it resolved. I don't know about you, but I usually try to keep track of the way my kids have ranked judges, or, we at least print our MPJ. Courtney's problem was different inasmuch as she had no way of knowing of her tab error because of the lack of a warm room or anything like that. Judges, however, are easy to catch; it's staring you in the face when you go read the pairing.

I also want to reiterate my initial question: why couldn't the at-large committee simply not rank Jalon in the way they would as if he had obtained a bid? As many others have said, no one from the committee has stepped up and said ANYTHING about this. You guys are the ones who made this decision, why won't any of you (though I'd like to hear from all of them) come and explain the rationale for this?

What I'm curious about is why there is a considerably small discussion going on over this, compared to last time. I'm even more interested in why no one from the committee has said anything here.

In retrospect, I feel like the last time this conversation was had, it was a mish mash of people making pretty smart arguments, and the committee answering with 'well, we were told to rank her.' At this point, I would like the email addresses of Linda Barker and JW Patterson so that I can ask why this was allowed again. Then, I'd like to have a discussion over why, in spite of KNOWING this student hadn't received a bid, the committee couldn't act in an activist fashion and not rank him, or rank him at the bottom, knowing that he hadn't met the requisite results.

edit: I have emailed linda, and greatly anticipate a reply. I greatly encourage a LARGE inquiry in to this situation, considering there were many other kids with bids who have not yet received an at-large (please, ask your coaches to do the emailing, don't do it yourselves), and there has yet to be a publicized rationale for this aberration.

The last time this happened, it was extraordinary. It's not a personal attack on Jalon, just like how the discussion over Courtney 3 years ago wasn't about her, but the situation.

http://victorybriefsdaily.com/2008/03/03/the-at-l...

Didn't we have this problem before?

What makes a great tournament? Being like greenhill. Free orange juice rules.

Also, tournaments spread over 3 days are always better, being able to start later and leave earlier is nice compared to the stress of 2-day tournaments.