It is the largest forensics tournament in the world. It involves three kinds of debate and nine different speech events. It lasts for an entire week. It has 1742 judges registered. The final rounds will take place in a 5000 seat arena, and almost all of the seats will be filled next Friday. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in scholarships will be handed out. The sponsors for the event are some of the leading players of corporate America. It is the National Forensic League National Tournament, and the American Principal’s Association recognizes it as the only legitimate national championship for high school speech and debate.

For the last six years I have been the director of tournament operations for this event. It has been an amazing experience. I love tournaments and I love big tournaments, so this is the one for me. I have had the bizarre and the delightful during that time, and I have been able, with the help of so many talented people I have worked with, to overcome the bizarre and enjoy the delightful. Whether it was leading constants out of a flooded classroom, watching my daughter herd escaped cows with a golf cart, surviving the room assignment meltdown in Atlanta, or the memorable dinner at the Mansion on Turtle Creek or the many other great moments (many of which I cannot write about).

<== Martin & I with three friends

This year the wonderful crew of people working with me includes the following:

Rich Edwards: Forensic tab program genius extraordinary. He wrote the program we use that integrates thirteen events with one judging pool, rewrites the code as we go along and successfully escorts all of the computer issues to a successful destination. He is mild mannered, never seems to get upset and has a good sense of humor. He is absolutely essential for the way the tournament runs. Likes chocolate covered macadamia nuts.

Ron Steinhorst: Knows everything about judges, knows most of them personally, totally unflappable, the most senior on the staff, likes a sip of Maker’s Mark now and then.

Scott Wunn: NFL Executive Secretary, tournament director, makes the final decisions, stays jolly and friendly under pressure, and always keeps the needs of the students uppermost in his mind.

Martin Glendinning: Can do computer tasks, judge assignments, puts out fires very well, stays positive, and keeps me on my toes. An essential part of the process. Misses his daughter.

<== Sarah with friend

Sarah Snider Green: Logistics specialist, puts out fires, foresees problems before they happen, does not suffer fools lightly, loves to shop.

Steve Davis: Good with computers, great with results, does the judge paradigm book, extremely thorough, and he likes to keep busy.

Brent Hinkle: Computer whizz, assigns judges, handles results, can do it all, unflappable, has a good sense of humor, and can make the computers do things Rich Edwards cannot.

There are many others, but these are the central people I work with.

Justin Green: New to the process, scans columns of numbers quite effectively, stays calm, learns fast, and likes really spicy food.

By the way, Martin, Sarah, Justin and I often hang out together, and we try to have some fun when possible. We had two great meals (Indian and Thai) in the fist few days, and also went to a minor league baseball game one night and went bowling another. What more can you do in Wichita?

The entire process is now computerized. There is a small group of people who handle each event (a committee) and they hand out ballots, start the rounds, input the results and handle all computing for their event. The main event individual events are coordinated together by J. E. Masters and Cathy Wood. The consolation and supplemental events are coordinated by Fred Vogt. All three kinds of debate and student congress have their own set of coordinators.

We arrive on Wednesday and have a planning session. Usually we go out for a nice dinner. Thursday we walk every room and allocate them to events while Ron and Steve take care of pooling the judges and assigning them to the semifinal and final rounds based on suggestions from Scott. Thursday night Rich Edwards runs the pairings and assigns the judges. On Friday morning we look at the pairings to double check them and we then encounter what I have called the “largest pile of paperwork in forensics,” which is the stack of judge assignment sheets that will be given to each of our 1724 judges. We sit down and proofread each of these, making sure there are no time slot conflicts, that the notations for semifinals and finals are correct, and that they do not have to move between sites on the same day. If all that works we take the pairings to be printed and the judge sheets are sorted into peoples registration folders.

<== NFL office staff with Elvis (nest year we go to Las Vegas)

Saturday is usually a quiet day for us, but we often get caught up in the set up for registration. This year we were tired of being burned by incompetence in the schedule printing process so we made sure the pairings were done early and then dropped them off at the site of registration. On Saturday at 6 PM there is a simple orientation for event chairs.

<== District chair luncheon

Sunday is registration, this time in a large convention center. The tab staff registers first and then goes off to tab meetings that begin at 9 AM. We walk around to all the tab rooms for a pep talk (mostly by Scott) and a logistics briefing (mostly by me). We then usually drop by the “New Coach at Nationals” reception (free food) and then also go to the “District Chair Luncheon” (more good food). Ron and Steve sit at the judge table in registration and handle a million questions and hundreds of judging issues, which they enter into the computer. We then sit around and wait for things to go wrong, although Martin generally does needed triage on the line in front of Ron and Steve. This year few things went wrong (two students not on the pairing, for example). At 4 PM registration closes. This time we ran out of schedules and Martin had to go have more printed.

Monday is where we are now. The tournament has just started. I will have another report or so coming up this week.