Re: Hey Brian!

brostron1 · Wed, 11 Apr 2001 18:27:12 -0700

I've no clue where that thing is. Never did. I
never even saw my individual glass plate trophy thing.
Most of that stuff got handed out as prizes as later
Wahoos, summer tournaments, etc. As for the travelling
trophy thing, I'm sure Andrew and Dan Hodes probably
kept it out of petulant spite. Actually, Andrew was
probably more personally aggrieved, and Hodes was piling
on. Although I don't remember Andrew ever publicly
promising anything. 

No, I think they should have
returned it, and I think they would have if CBI had waited
a bit longer and bugged them more.

Although,
honestly I don't think you really ask because you wish to
know its whereabouts, although you may be curious. No,
I think that you wish to tweak Andrew or me or the
team generally by suggesting, indirectly, as is your
manner, that we or he or they did something wrong, and
that this indicates that our point on something is
wrong and your position is vindicated. And I am sure
that your response to this post will be something like
"Oh, I didn't mean to suggest anything like that at
all. I just wanted to know where the trophy was that
you all publicly promised to return. I'm sure that
you all believe supremely in the importance of
integrity," etc. Which is fine. It's passive aggressive and
annoys a good number of people, although I think that
you honestly don't intend it as such. We, and I don't
know who have the right to speak collectively for so I
probably should say I, would have done things differently
had we known now what we do now. I for one would have
never participated in your program at U.Va. For me, it
was just a waste of time. I honestly thought College
Bowl, and that's all I really knew of academic
competition during my first year of playing, would be an
intellectual exercise where I could learn all of the things
that I wanted to know but had never been exposed to
before. When I realized it wasn't at all during my second
year, I planned on quitting for good. But then I went
to quality invitationals and met people like Andrew
and realized that you could learn things and be
around people who were truly intellectually
invigorating. I think the reason people like me got so mad at
CBI, and there were lots of us, is because we thought
that we had wasted time and energy when we could have
been doing better things. That and the fact that CBI
actually like unctuous game show producers. Now, things
are better. U.Va.'s program is completely different.
Players are exposed to much more, and good players like
John Kenney don't have slog to through CBI for a
couple of years and fight to change things because
things have changed. It's not perfect now; I think the
old way brought in a wider range of personalities and
kept them playing. I still think there's a place for
CBI; I just wish it were run and supported by people
who truly understood players and could speak frankly
with them. Yeah, Tom, I've read your posts for a long
time now, and you always come across as a smug lackey
for CBI. I guess Andrew was right about that,
too.

Brian