Round the 8th (of doom)

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Round 8 decisions are all now in. JR lost to Dartmouth on a 2-1 decision. KS lost to Redlands on a 2-1. It was a decent showing that will hopefully serve as a springboard for success in the future. We will be spending tonight watching the double-octafinals and tomorrow catching as many high-level debates as possible.

Thanks to everybody for their kind words and evidentiary help. Enjoy the pictures.

Clint & Crew

round 7 analysis

Matt and Kevin lost to Georgia State but overall it was a great round for the team. It was a low point win in one of the judges mind and not only did the judges say that their speeches were amazing but Matt claims he had the best speech of his life in the debate. He is excited to see it on video. It was a learning experience and even though they wont break this round they are in a good mood and preparing for next round.

JR wins

Nick & Sean have defeated Clarion on a 3-0 decision. We won our court stripping DA and that the lower courts could do their plan.
One of the judges, Heather Hall of Liberty university, began her decision by noting how great and refreshing the collegial atmosphere of the debate was and commeded both teams on their clear camraderie. I think it was a testament to the character of both teams.

Update soon when we find out out about KS.

Round the 7th- Crunch Time.

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As the "Man Scout" (the nickname has caught on) mentioned, Special K and Struth are debating Georgia State LP, a pretty good and versatile team hailing from District 6. I'm not judging this debate and have been receiving text message updates from Jason. We have reead the same affimative to overrule the Milliken decision, arguing that it would alleviate racism in schools and claiming a new advantage to deal with critical arguments.

According to Jason, Georgia State read an Agamben Critique, a CP to confront racism, a Supreme Court Legitimacy Disadvantage, and a property tax disadvantage.
Jason (who has been assigned to scout the debate) also reports that Kevin gave a "very good 2ac and we are winning ethos and logos.

Matt & Kevin need to win this debate as well as their round 8 debate (in which we automatically go negative) to achieve one of the primary team goals for this year: participating in the elimination rounds of the National Debate Tournament. All teams that finish the preliminary debates with 5 wins advance to elimination debates. Cross your fingers or pray to your respective Gods, as this would be an awesome achievement for this hard-working team and the UMW program.

**Text Message Update from Jason** Jason says that the 1ar has just been completed by Matt, and that by Matt's assessment, it was "one of the best 1ars i've ever given."
It seems that everything is clicking at the right time, but please continue to focus your positive thoughts.


The coaching staff has just completed the strike sheet for the elimination rounds, in the hope that this scenario takes place. Teams are able to select 30 judges, who they do not want to evaluate their debates, to "strike" and 60 judges to prefer. It is a very strategic process of determining judges who are ideologically in line with our arguments, are willing at vote for UMW (a relatively small school) in a "David vs. Goliath" match-up against a powerhouse from Georgia or Northwestern or Harvard, and those most likely to fairly evaluate all arguments with a high standard for quality.

Sean and Nick are having fun debating Clarion University, our "sister program" from Pennsylvania. We are quite close with the Clarion debaters and, from my experience, those debates were always a great time. This is Clarion's first appearance at the NDT, an oustanding accomplishment for the debaters Rob Noerr and Taylor Hahn, and coaches Jim Lyle and Tom Kennedy.

I will try to post again when we have a decision in for both debates.

Thanks to the well wishers.

Clint

Day 5: before round 7

They have just finished reading the debates round 7 and we are excited for our debates.

Currently Matt and Kevin are 3-3 and are looking to win the next two debates so that they are guaranteed to break. They are about to debate Georgia State LP, which should be good for us. We are on the aff.

Nick and Sean are 1-5 but have had some very close debates. They are still excited against their next debate against Clarion since we are good friends

We have done alot of work, so we should be ready and have fun

Day 4: after round 5

Round 5 has just finished.

Matt and Kevin won against James Madison on a 3-0. So they are very happy and are ready to make a good run.

Sadly, Sean and Nick lost on a 2-1 decision against a very good Fullerton team. It sucks but the littlest details can cause a team to lose. But even though they will probably not break they are excited because they have less pressure and are most likely debating a team that we are good friends with.

Anyways, we are just going over strategies and things are going well.

Jason

Day 4: Mid day

We just finished round four and sadly the results were not great. According to the team the general consensus is that Clint evidence is under highlighted, power tagged, with no warrants, and pretty much sucks in all regards. (quoted by Sean and Nick). As you can imagine they lost on a 2-1 to Michigan State AB because they went for Nano solves gender and the judges just didn't think the cards said that. But they can still break by winning out and they are not too worried.

Matt and Kevin lost on a 3-0 to Harvard against a Morrison aff. It turned out the case outweighs court stripping. Anyways, they are 2-2 and only need to win 3 out of the final four rounds.

We have just finished lunch and are getting ready for next round. Everyone wants to thank everyone for their help.

Jason

Day 3: almost bedtime

It is almost midnight here in Dallas and we are calling it a night.

Today was a good start kevin and matt are 2-1 with 5 ballots. They are feeling confident and ready for whoever they face tomorrow morning

They won their first debate on a 2-1 decision against a team that ran a new aff on them.
They then lost their second debate on a 3-0 decision when a team beat them on a constitutional amendment counter plan. They finished the day strong with a 3-0 decision against a rival team from Boston College. This time Kevin was ready to answer the constitutional amendment counter plan.

Nick and Sean are 1-2 with 2 ballots. They have gone over their potential enemies for tommorow morning and are ready to go.

They had a hard couple of rounds. They lost their first round on a 3-0 decision but came back and beat a kritiky team on a 2-1 decision. They ended their day with a tough loss to a constitutional amendment counter plan but will not make the same mistakes.

Overall it was a good day and tommorow will be even better
I just hope the weather will be better

Jason

Day 3: First round

The first round began at 9 this morning and the two teams are right by each other on the 18th floor.

Matt and Kevin are debating Vermont Kl with Buntin, Derrick, and guevara as the judges. The debate should be interesting becuase Vermont was breaking a new aff.

Sean and Nick are debating Whitman RS with Burke, Voth, and Warner as the judges. Whitman is reading a Qurin aff grounded on international law standards. Hopefully our congress counterplan will work.

I will post the results after the rounds.

Day 2: almost bedtime

Tonight was the banquet ceremony before the tournament begins. It is where a guest speaker talks to the teams and most importantly (besides hearing Tim tell everyone about the Rules) the top 5 teams are announced including the number one (Copeland Award).

The guest speaker was Tim Goldstein who was a former University of North Carolina debater who was quite successful and now works as a Lawyer who specializes in Supreme Court litigation. He gave a great speech on how debaters should never give up and was very funny. Then there were a couple of other awards for the person who gives back to the community the most and coach of the year. But that was not that exciting. Then the Top 5 teams were announced. I was anticipating Matt and Kevin but sadly they were never mentioned. Too much time looking at Facebook I guess. Anyways, the top 5 teams were 5) Wayne State MT 4)Dartmouth CO 3) Kansas BJ 2)Oklahoma CJ and the best team went to Georgia CR. From what I heard it was a very close decision.

Beyond that there is not much news. The funny/sad thing of the night is that Georgetown will not make it to the NDT. According to my friend who goes to Georgetown, the senior on the team was leading a discussion for a club he was the president for and the guest speaker spilled over on time. By the time they made it to the airport the lines were too long and they missed their flight. Sadly, they will not make it and I know that they are very sad.
Anyways, things are going good and I am just hoping that the internet doesn’t stop crashing.

Welcome Sports Fans!

Jason & Kevin wrestle over the future of the blog.

Nick & Sean heatedly discuss strategy.

Matt checks Facebook.

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I wanted to help Jason maintain this blog for those of you tuning in at home, mostly because I thought that last year's blog represented a tradition worth continuing. We are presently at the 2007 National Debate Tournament at the Westin Park Central in Dallas, Texas. This NDT will be held entirely at the Westin, diverging from the standard practice of holding tournaments on college campuses.

Juniors Nick Ryan and Sean Jansen, Sophomore Matt Struth, and Freshman Kevin "Special K" Kallmyer will be competing against 76 of the best debate teams in America. Rounding out Mary Washington's NDT contingent are debate coach Adrienne Brovero, DOD Tim O'Donnell, one-man-crack-research team/"Man Scout" Jason Martin, and myself. To offer some background on this year's topic (or if you are interested in pitching in), the caselist is a valuable resource.

This evening we will be taking a team picture, grabbing some dinner at Chipotle, and attending the NDT reception (where the rankings for the top 5 teams in the country and the prestigious Copeland Award are announced). Rounds 1 through 3 will be held tomorrow, with the announcement for round one beginning at 8:00 sharp. I will try to keep you all posted as this weekend progresses.

Clint Woods

Day 2: afternoon

We have just got back from a nice lunch and my new found love for blogging has been taken away from me. Clint has coerced me into giving him the details for the blog. I hope he maintains the professionalism of my blogging.

Day 2: Mid morning

We have just finished a meeting were we went over the schedule for the day. We are still happy about our progress and are finishing up assignments. It will be a busy day with lots of formalities, like a banquet, but the team should be ready for tommorow.

Day 1: Wednesday night at midnight

We just got out of a meeting where we disscussed future assignments and things we need to take care of. We also went over the notes for the tournament and the debate rooms. I will call it for the night and go to bed after working on some assignments. Everyone has high spirits now that we looked over Dorrier's assignments.

Day 1: continued

i have informed matt of the blog and it looks legit. im glad it worked

Day 1: hotel

This is the beggining of the blog. I am doing this for Kevin, Nick, Sean, and especially Matt who has serectly told me his deep desires for having a blog.

Nothing much has happened. We ate dinner and now we are just getting judge prefs together.

I hope to continue this continuously but i will probably forget.

Jason (March 28, 2007 9:00 p.m.)