Just for the DePauw point of view on all this, I think a couple things are true: 1. Our tournament was written (except for outside packets) by a team that, due to the very nature of the college, is all-undergrad. 2. There were questions that were either poorly edited or were just too easy, but no tournament is completely devoid of these. The "Sneakers" question is a good example of this, but I do not think it emblematic of all the questions as a whole. 3. Tournaments NOT run by TRASH are probably DESIGNED to be easier and more accessible to a broader range of people, starting with less experienced players. Our tournament was definitely easier than a TRASH regional, but at the same time, I think it says something that no one averaged 60 points per game, even very solid players like Robert, Mark, David Murphy and Matt Larson. My goal in writing a tournament (for the 2 I've primarily written) is that one person cannot dominate (i.e. score 75-100 ppg), and that most people can have averages with which they will be happy at the end of the day. This way, everyone has fun and feels like the trip to middle-of-nowhere Indiana was worthwhile. I would like to say we achieved this sort of parity, but with only 8 teams playing, that's kind of hard to back up statistically. You show me a bell curve of ppg averages with 75% of people in the 10-30 range and I'll show you a bunch of happy players who all got to buzz in at least once each game and who might just come back to your tournament again. The goal of TRASH is a little different, I think. They don't care who gets what question -- they care who has the most hard-core trash knowledge. That's great -- this is what a national organization should do, and TRASH does it well, I feel. So, this is kind of an "apples and oranges" argument, I feel. Yes, they're both tournaments focused around knowledge of popular culture, but the aim of each is different. We're out to have fun and award silly prizes, they're out to award a national champion. Stan Jastrzebski Editor, DUCK Bowl 2002
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0: Sat 12 Feb 2022 12:30:46 AM EST EST