> I believe that some sort of "affirmative action" to ensure geographic > diversity is a good thing. Two years ago, Simon Fraser University > sent two teams to their first ever quiz bowl tournament, which was an > NAQT SCT (only the second ever held in the Pacific Northwest), and one > of those teams ended up winning the Division II title. Since there > were only three Division II teams, and their stats weren't all that > great, I'm convinced that if the 2003 rules were in place, SFU > wouldn't have qualified for the ICT. But winning the opportunity to > play in St. Louis provided great encouragement in making SFU the most > active team in the region. Peter -- This is certainly an area on which reasonable people can disagree; NAQT recognizes that qualifying for the ICT (or having success in other quiz bowl endeavors) can spark a team to achieve greater things. SFU coming, of course, prevented another team from coming, a team that *might* have benefited from the opportunity as much or more. NAQT is open to evaluating the benefits of inviting apparently weaker teams in the name of circuit development and geographic diversity, but, historically, player feedback has run counter to that policy. Based on comments such as yours, and any that we receive in the months after the SCT and ICT, we will re-evaluate our policy for next year. We look forward to hearing people's opinions and encourage them to send them to naqt-at-naqt.com. -- R. Robert Hentzel President and Chief Technical Officer, National Academic Quiz Tournaments, LLC
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