Posted by Brennan Morris
FGLDS President
FGLDS President
Debate often requires a great deal of sacrifice from its students... early mornings loading the bus, late nights in rounds, long trips to tournaments in cities few of the students have ever heard of. But the Laird Lewis Invitational on January 3-6 was, for many, the ultimate in sacrifice... missing out on the four days of Christmas Vacation to compete at a large national tournament in Charlotte, NC.
Though many of the students had to sacrifice to come to the tournament, no one travelled farther than T. Graham Morrow, flying from Niger, through Charles de Galle Airport, and finally picked up by the Pratt family at Dulles.
In getting to the tournament, the R-MA Debate Bus made the circuit from Front Royal, where the files were loaded by John Holsinger and Mr. Gregg, to the Manassas Borders parking lot and picking up most of the students, to Colonial Forge and picking up Nora McCotter, to Durham, NC to pick up our final piece of the puzzle – Allyn Collins. But the trip passed quickly, as the students got reacquainted with one another and got to serious prepping out on the new January Resolution: "Resolved: In a democracy, Civil Disobedience is an appropriate weapon in the fight for justice." As this was a new resolution, the debaters made that commitment to travel to a very tough tournament in order to be the best prepared for NFL Qualifiers/ VaFL States at the end of the month.
Staying in the fabulous Staybridge Suites, following dinner at the only Checkers Dining Room.. complete with roller-skating waitresses, the team worked heavily that morning on the practice rounds before registration. Working so hard, it was a scramble-dash to get to registration before it closed. Scouting out the fabulous Myers Park High School and then hitting Taco Bell for a quick and nutritious meal, we set up our LZ (landing zone) in the cafeteria and prepared for the double-patterned six rounds, bouncing between extemporaneous speaking and Public Forum rounds from Friday afternoon until Saturday evening.
This tournament being one of the few where Mr. Gregg was not in Tab, he prepped out students between rounds and worrying over the judge pools for VaFL States. It was a special and rare treat to the students to be able to have Mr. Gregg on-hand for prep and running arguments past in real-time.
On Saturday, we saw that John Holsinger had broken to semifinals in Declamation and the team of Kaleb Gerber and Marianne Nell had broken to quarterfinals in Public Forum. Following awards and a nerve-wracking easter egg hunt for our portfolios and bags, the first round of the National Public Forum Challenge, sponsored by Crossfire Briefs, began. Our invited team, the team of Morris and Morrow, tried out a new libertarian/ social contract case. The results were not so good; but a valuable lesson was learned – keep the arguments simple and straightforward.
As the tournament ran later than we anticipated, the R-MA team stayed an additional night in the hotel, watching scary movies, doing homework, or engaged in violent Risk games that endlessly reduced one freshman to the small island of Madagascar.
As the tournament ran later than we anticipated, the R-MA team stayed an additional night in the hotel, watching scary movies, doing homework, or engaged in violent Risk games that endlessly reduced one freshman to the small island of Madagascar.
When we returned to campus Monday evening, we found that we had only left a laptop and the entire Africa Extemp File in North Carolina. The laptop was recovered and sent fed ex. The Africa file was devoured by other teams, leaving only an empty husk. Lessons learned: One) Everyone packs their own laptop and puts it in their seat, Two) If 12 boxes of files come off the bus, 12 go back on and to always bolt and load after the last speaker, Three) Prepare even more and review and rewrite cases for NFL States at the end of the month.
Pictures can be found at: http://fglds.pbase.com/
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