I think that you all are forgetting one key thing: this is supposed to be fun and exciting. What exactly is fun about playing an excutiatingly long round robin, and having two teams get to play an extremely long and boring finals round in which the team who is already seated first is the only acceptable winner. If the team seated second wins, obviosly there 'is something wrong with the format.' I know I've only played in college for one year, but I've been extensively involved with quizbowl for the last 7 years of my life. I promise you if the round robin format had been used at most of the tournaments I played in in the past, I would not have cared enough to help create a collegiate team. There is absolutely nothing exciting about the preferred format at this level. It's too safeguarded, too formulaic, and too concerned with statistics. Why do I want to spend all of my energy working within the boundaries of the quizbowl formula. IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE A GAME. It's supposed to be challenging, and rewarding, and crazy, and unpredictable. If you know who the winner is supposed to be before you go to a tournament, then why put in the time and money to go?? And you guys have completely eliminated any excitement. You're supposed to get an adrenaline rush in the elimination rounds of a tournament, not a calculator to figure out if its mathematically acceptable for you to win. What happened to the thrill of stepping up for the elimination round? This isn't a lecture series-it's our sport. And yes, all those NCAA tournament and Superbowl analogies are right on. Just because the camera isn't there to sell the frenzy to an audience doesn't mean the player shouldn't get to experience it. Part of the magic that accompanies doing well at a tournament is knowing that it was all or nothing. Knowing you went in and did what you had to do. Playing it safe with an overly buearocratic way to determine a winner takes away all of the winner's glory. And just because you believe you would have won a true elimination round finals doesn't mean you would have. It's about stepping up when the time comes. And there are plenty of players who choke when the pressure is on. Being good and winning prelim games is a lot easier than winning in quarters, semis, or finals. The competition might be the same team you faced earlier, but now they're hungrier and fiercer. It's about finding out if you can handle the pressure. And I believe that the overwhelming majority of college quizbowlers who hate single elimination tournaments are afraid to see what they're made of. But what else is the point of traveling long distances to face random teams from other universities. What else do we take away from the competition, if not a better knowledge of who we are and what we can handle? No guts, no glory. -Stephanie Craig, acknowleding the tremendous amount of typos and spelling errors and wishing she had used a lot of expliatives. VP Kansas Academic Team
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