Trash and its relationship to qb

ater31337 <*no_reply_at_yahoogroups.com*> · Tue, 21 Mar 2006 08:53:34 -0000

I know it's far from the first time we had this debate, but this past
weekend re-raises the question of whether there still is (and should
be) any viable connection between academic quiz bowl and trash.

While I wasn't directly harmed by Cancel Bowl's disruption of the
Brown tournament, I am speaking out because I think it sets a
dangerous precedent.  It's always been a tacit rule on the circuit
that tournaments (regardless of academic or trash status) should
respect each other's scheduling, and Cancel Bowl basically raised its
leg and urinated on that rule.

I'm not here to pile on Mr. Coen, whom I've met in the past and got
the impression he was a perfectly nice guy, nor make any accusations
of malice, but it's simply disrespectful to step on the toes of
another tournament, even if it's an innocent mistake, and refuse to
budge when the mistake is pointed out.  I know someone like myself,
Jerry (who actually did bend over backwards to accomodate this
intrusion on his tournament), or any experienced academic tournament
director would have graciously tried to move or work something out;
should we not expect trash tournaments to abide by the same standards
anymore?

If so, that segues into my question of why trash should even be
considered as part of quiz bowl.  At this point the common thread of
questions, answers, and some sort of recognition machine doesn't even
make sense anymore, or else we'd count pub trivia as quiz bowl (which
apparently at least some "quiz bowl" teams prefer to the actual
academic quiz bowl that defines the activity).  

If the message from this past weekend is that trash organizers don't
have to play by the same rules as everyone else in quiz bowl, is there
any reason why trash players (and I mean the people who only play
trash and the occasional NAQT high school tournament, not people who
actually write packets and attend academic tournaments as well) are
still considered part of the circuit, given deference in their
tournament scheduling, able to use the same public resources (e.g.
message boards) and university resources (e.g. school funding and
hosting space for tournaments; as I imagine you're much more likely to
get support in the name of college-level academic competition than in
the name of joining a bunch of bored, out-of-school 35 year olds in
answering non-pyramidal questions on 1970's sitcoms and last week's
hot radio singles)?

I don't know, it just seems that academic and trash tournaments and
players inherently seem to be at odds, especially given the way in
which the broadest attempt for both factions reach out, the ACF
Fall-TRASH Regionals partnership, turned out to be a mutual
disappointment.  I don't hate trash by default; I enjoy it when well
done (i.e. when people who aren't TRASH and can/make the slightest
attempt to write questions even minimally approaching today's circuit
standards are running things, but that's another diatribe), but it
seems to make more sense to keep it separate from college quiz bowl
and let the people who want to do academic do their own thing and the
people who want to do trash do theirs (either through their own
private funding and organization or as part of a distinct
trash-specific university one) and the people who want to do both
bounce around between two different entities on their own time, rather
than try to force this uneasy coexistance.