Princeton Saturday

We're wrapping up an exhausting day at Princeton. Our competitors are done; all did well but no one broke. Pictures tomorrow. Coach Taafel and I have to judge a round of the finals tomorrow morning, but the kids can sleep in.

All our novices did quite well considering this is their first national tournament experience. It was a great way to prepare for GMU next month and U Penn in February. Princeton is an amazing campus, and New Jersey was nice enough not to snow on us this year.

Our Varsity LDer, John Christoph, just missed breaking in a very strong field. Our Varsity PF team, Valerie Pratt and Jackson Mcgraw, were charging hard through the first three rounds when things got interesting. Jackson developed stomach pains and we took him to the hospital. To our great relief he's fine now, but the team had to drop out of the tournament.

Things do happen on debate trips. For me, it's great to see the enthusiasm and great attitudes...all of our kids are real troopers. You can't measure that with trophies.

Princeton!

We made it! Better yet, all of our novice LDers cleared the waiting list, so everyone is competing! We ran into our old friend Ryan Black on the way to the first round.

Princeton Classic schedule

Friday morning, we're on our way to New Jersey for the Princeton Classic tournament! We'll have two teams in Public Forum, and John Christoph will be in Varsity Lincoln Douglas; our three Novice LDers are on the waiting list and will very likely get a chance to compete, but will at least observe rounds at one of the premier tournaments in the country. Over 800 schools are competing this year. Here is the schedule:

Friday: LD on campus, PF at Princeton HS

2:30-4:00 Registration in McCosh

5:00 Round 1

7:00 Round 2

Saturday on Princeton campus GA/JA in McCosh

8:00 Round 3

10:30 Round 4

1:00 Round 5

3:30 Round 6

6:00 VLD 7, NLD & PF Double Ocs

Sunday on Princeton campus (McCosh)

8:00 VLD Double Ocs

9:00 PF & NLD Octos

10:30 VLD Octos, PF & NLD Quarters

11:45 VLD Quarters, PF & NLD Semis

1:00 PF & NLD Finals, VLD Semis

2:00 VLD Finals

3:00 Awards

 

We're baaaack!

After a month's hiatus due to scheduling difficulties, we assaulted the airwaves once again yesterday with our WFTR Radio Forum! Here's the link to the podcast:

http://www.archive.org/details/RmaSpeechDebateRadioClubhouse

Team Captain Valerie Pratt moderated, and we had a lively guest panel consisting of Ben Nelson, Tyler Atkinson, Alex Neumeier, Ben Schoonover and Marc Eichenwald. Oddly enough, little was said about last week's election. We thoroughly investigated America's relationship with India and had a lot of fun with California's recent rejection of legalized marijuana.

If WFTR doesn't get a nasty warning message (in Morse code) from the FCC, we'll do it again in two weeks!