Monday, March 26, 2007

debate stuff & CEDA

The Hater and I went to Norman this past weekend to watch the college-level debate nationals. We took the video camera so that The Hater could use the tapes for training. He spent much of his Spring Break judging rounds for Gonzaga. We went yesterday strictly to tape the last few rounds.

We are tickled that our bracket not only pulled through, but was 100% spot-on for the triple-octofinal (48 teams) rounds. We were pulling for a couple of seniors at OU who were both Oklahoma high school debaters that debated mostly in-state. Incidentally, neither of them were recruited by any big universities to debate for them. And they were nice guys, which is rare in the successful college debate circle.

So these guys went to OU and were some of the first members of the debate team there. The OU debate team is 4 years old, and it's a big deal that they have come so far so quickly. And although we don't really support anything OU, this was our one exception: we support both OU and UCO debate teams.

It's okay because UT doesn't have a debate team, and we're not about to support Vandy, who is bad anyway.

The plan is to do what no team has ever done before: This coming weekend in Dallas is the NDT, the other national debate championship. (for some reason they have two sets of nationals) No team in the history of debate nerdness has ever won BOTH CEDA nationals and the NDT. It's never been done. A couple of teams have come close, but they haven't succeeded.

This week, as March Madness is waning, we'll be watching all of the brackets. We think that if Florida loses to UCLA, and UCLA wins the championship, we might win the Peanut bracket. But Florida must lose or Emily will win, which is okay, too. Meanwhile, we'll also be cheering for the Lady Vols in the women's bracket. We'll watch the updates on ESPN and hope our teams pull through.

We'll also be watching what's going on in the debate circuit. Although you'll never hear us say Boomer Sooner, we'll be rooting for Oklahoma CJ to do what's never been done before.

No comments: