All-
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
