One more tournament down... two nationals to go

It seems kind of odd to me that this will be my last year coaching a team at KLNPDAKL nationals (for new readers, I add a few letters every time I talk about a national tournament, just to avoid the google...). I've been doing it so long that the prospect of having most of my Spring Break seems like a dream most people get to live out, but that is never available to me...

For now, I'm sure I'll keep running the ballot table at NPTEKQRS nationals, but I don't see a good reason to go to the larger one. This year, like many years I'll start my spring break by running one tournament and end it by coaching at the other. For all intents and purposes, my spring break consists of two days in Red State (Tuesday and Wednesday) -- Monday we come home from NPTEKQRS nationals and Thursday I meet the team in mountain state for KLNPDARK nationals...

Today I hosted a debate party at BNCC. It was fun-- we had six teams from 4 different schools. We did 5 rounds and gave out some toys as prizes at the end. Some of my really good debate friends came and spent the whole day judging and giving insightful comments. We had good food, some fun times and did some great work to prepare for nationals.

Since I only have one team, I'm VERY grateful for their help getting ready for nationals. Without them, my team would have the same practice round over and over again -- which teaches them to debate against one type of team, but not against many others. I've also said the same things over and over to them -- and, like many familar relationships, what I say often goes in one ear and out the other. The fact that the other coaches were giving the same comments as i do helps to reinforce what I've said -- and maybe they'll listen.