PHOTO: Century II Center in downtown Wichita, Kansas

Thursday the tournament experiences a bit of swelling. With the addition of the supplemental events all of the shrinkage that took place in the raw mass of people competing is reduced as a huge number (this year set a new record for supplemental competition) is injected into the tournament. On Thursday we added two more events, impromptu speaking and storytelling, which once again swelled the ranks of competitors. For example, we had 64 sections of seven speakers each in impromptu speaking, and we have to get that number down to six in one day. Speakers rankled in the top three of the seven get an “up” and continue, those with 4-7 get a “down” and they are out. This huge participation does help the NFL considerably from a financial perspective, since there are a huge number of entries and they cost very little to accommodate.

<== Kathy Wood and J.E. Masters, coordinators of the main event speech tab rooms

One other problem with Thursday is that the time blocks begin to overlap as the main events wind down and the consolation and supplemental events are going full force. This made judge placement difficult in the morning and rooms were a little tight as well. For some reason the rooms we had assigned for the late main events rounds (nice big rooms with excellent conditions for the events) did not show up as assigned, so I had to do a bit of shifting around to make sure that all of those who wanted to watch the main event late rounds could do so.

<== The original oratory tab room poses with their final poster

After main event round 12 Ron Steinhorst was finished. His judge replacement assignment jobs were done, yet he kept on working and kept on helping everyone until he left to judge the original oratory final late Thursday. This is a good indicator of how committed he is to this tournament. After working hard since the previous Wednesday he was still there doing everything he could. Ron is my tournament hero, and there is no doubt about that.

I learned on Thursday morning that Rich Edwards had gotten ten hours of sleep on Wednesday night. He is another person who really deserved it. After long days at the tournament Rich would stay behind updating the data on computers and then going home and rewriting code on his program to make sure the next day would run well. Rich is also one of my tournament heroes.

As the public forum debate tab room got down to two teams they seemed to mysteriously vanish. The director of the tab room, who had not answered his phone when called all week, suddenly answered when I called. I asked him about the results that he was supposed to deliver to the national office as his final duty, and he told me that he had done better than that, he had delivered the computer he had used and that it was on the national office truck. We then had to get it off the truck, fire it up, print the results and supply them to the national office. It had been a tough few days and I can understand that they were ready to throw in the towel, but we have to take this tournament to the absolute end.

All of a sudden the three divisions of debate were finished, and suddenly a quiet fell over Wichita East high school. Two teams in each event were bound for the finals the next day at the Century II Center, and it all ended. Sarah was glad because it was the end of her formal duties. She had made sure that three 200+ team events had run smoothly at her site, and now she was done. Great job, Sarah.

<== Supplemental and consolation tab rooms in action

The supplemental and consolation events dragged on and on over at Derby high school. The main events had finished after lunch and had made their final posters and turned in their final results, with only the finals rounds to be held at the Century II Center. Finally, the supplemental and consolation events got down to a critical mass (into their semifinal rounds) and Martin and I were able to leave.

We needed to leave because we had our central tab room staff dinner that night. Sarah had located what was supposed to be the best restaurant in Wichita (we had two choices, and we picked one) so we went to a place called Chester’s, and it was amazingly good. I mean really good. They had an amazing corn side dish that was one of the best things I have ever tasted. All the vegetables and all of the meats are produced at specific organic farms, and the taste was magnificent. The group was conposed of Rich Edwards and his wife Connie, Steve Davis (a great job, and he never causes a problem), Ron Steinhorst, Sarah Snider and her husband Justin Green (director of debate at Kansas State University, who had worked with Steve all week and before that on getting the pairings ready and walking the classrooms), Martin Glendinning, and then  myself. We did our usual post tournament recap and had some very interesting comments, The verdict was that we had done well and while we had ideas and suggestions for next year, we felt good about our efforts.

At the dinner I realized how lucky we were to have two other heroes on our team. Steve Davis does his job, doesn’t mess up and never complains. Assign Steve a task and it gets done and done well. Amidst all of the chaos of this huge tournament, that is a wonderful thing to be able to depend on. Martin Glendinning is also a truly amazing person at this tournament. I diagnosed where problems would be and I sent Martin there (like the middle school on Monday) and the result was that there were no problems. I asked Martin to be our interface with th supplemental and consolation events, and he was there to manage all of the little crises that happen when you have hundreds and hundreds of competitors descending on a school for huge events that take place in two days. He often squealed with pain (at least in private), but he always made it happen and did so with an extremely high degree of professionalism. I really appreciate that Martin has the kind of expertise that can be deployed to any point in the tournament and cause good things to happen. He puts out fires, he prevents problems and he is always pleasant and cooperative. Martin, you are my brother, and I thank you for all of this and more.

<== Martin Glendinning, my brother and tournament partner

The final person I want to thank is Brent Hinkle, who could not be at the dinner because he was still working, this time on producing th final results packet. Brent Hinkle has tremendous expertise in tournament administration and especially with the tournament computer interface. He held hands in tab rooms, solved a huge number of problems, moved computers, repaired printers, calmed people down and did whatever was needed to make the tournament happen. He did it all with a smile and a wry sense of humor. He worked his ass off and never complained. Brent, we need you, and you cannot be replaced. Thanks.

Thus, after dinner in Friday night I went home and went to bed, I was exhausted. I slept because I knew that Friday runs on autopilot and my intervention would not be needed.

Friday dawned late. Sure, I would like to go and watch some of the final rounds which featured some of the greatest forensic talent on the planet, but I slept in. I got up before noon and met with Martin, Sarah and Justin and we made our way over to the Century II Center where it was all going on. We saw Carol Zanto to get our expense reimbursement checks and our honorariums. Trust me, you would not do this for money, it has to be for love. I took the opportunity to talk with Ted Belch, who is coordinating the next year’s event in Las Vegas, and we traded ideas about how it will go, but I know that we have a whole year for that. We went back to our hotel and said out goodbyes. Justin and Sarah were off to their home base in Manhattan and Martin was on his way back to Oklahoma City to be reunited with his lovely daughter he had missed so much.

Suddenly I was alone. It was over. I did not go to the awards assembly, even though I would have liked to. Later Scott told me that there was a huge applause for the tournament administration, of which I was the director of operations, but I don’t do it for the applause. I do it because I want these 5000+ people to have a great experience. I watched the LA Dodgers baseball game online and then began preparing for my next assignments.

The next day I would fly out of Wichita on my way to Europe, to teach for a week at the Slovenian national debate camp and then on to Serbia to teach a summer course in persuasion theory at the Faculty of Organizational Sciences in Belgrade. I noticed that the local Derby paper had complained that Wichita had taken all the media credit for the event while most of it took place in Derby. I will let them figure that one out. I was just glad it went well.

The next day I listened to a recorded phone message from Scott Wunn, NFL executive secretary. It was obviously after the awards assembly and he was effusive in his thanks and praise for the job I had done along with my staff. I appreciate that. Scott is not a man of empty praise, and he might have been a bit tired after the huge event, but I appreciate his kind words. He said that he could not do it without me, and I realized that I could not do it without the help of so many other people. Like anything huge in speech and debate, we have to work together. We did, and I am proud of that.

I will report in June 2008 from Las Vegas.