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MSHSAA bidding discussion

Discussion of quizbowl topics not related to specific tournaments
rjaguar3
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MSHSAA bidding discussion

Post by rjaguar3 »

This is terrible news for anyone who desires to play a game that rewards excellence in academic learning, rather than a game of popsicle stick riddles combined with someone's 6th-grade math midterm (thanks, Matt Weiner, for the analogy).

Questions Galore knows me, so I'm think they'll be more receptive to me. That said, if you want me to relay anything on to Questions Galore, let me know.

EDIT: Oh, and vocabulary hangman, too. That, and "significa" like first ladies' maiden names.

EDIT: Plus "what Wikipedia article am I quoting now?" Can't forget that.


<div class="editby">Edited by <a href='http://s4.zetaboards.com/Academic_Compe ... jaguar3</a>, Jul 14 2009, 09:39:20 PM.</div>

Charbroil
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Post by Charbroil »

Wait...did you (Kent) or anyone else actually bid on this contract? And did MSHSAA actually pick QG regardless?

KentB
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Post by KentB »

I sent my contact information to Stacy Schroeder and requested more information. I never got a reply. This is the first e-mail to suggest she even knew I existed and it stated that. I was not going to bid (for TSU ACO) anyway after discussing the issue with Matt and others, but this is still an "interesting" move.

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Charlie Dees
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Post by Charlie Dees »

Yeah, I know of at least one other question provider that asked for the bidding information.

richbob
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Post by richbob »

Just thought I would add something on this issue from personal experience.

I never received any letter from MSHSAA about bidding on next year's questions. I don't believe any provider did. The weird thing is that I was told I would receive a bid letter, but the decision was made by the "Board" three days earlier. I am curious, did any provider receive a letter asking for bids? Mike and Shawn, please respond to this question.

By the way, please don't blame the coach's advisory board. In no way were they involved in this selection process.

To be honest, I believe that the MSHSAA Advisory Board did not want to put the bid out, fearing that Questions Galore would raise his rate, and then they would have to pay more. No other provider would sell this cheap.

The way to get ride of Questions Galore is to refuse to buy his questions for tournaments or practice. Then, he wouldn't make enough money on the state order to bid on the questions. I know that after I wrote the Arkansas state questions a few years ago, I refused to send in a bid the next year, or any successive year. The reason being that I did not get one single order from any high school in the state. They purchased the 20 practice games that I provided to the state organization, from the state organization.

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L-Town Expatriate
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Post by L-Town Expatriate »

If MSHSAA granting an extension on crappy questions was done behind "closed doors", with funds provided by hundreds of public schools (and thusly Missouri taxpayers) then lawmakers in Jeff City who want to gut MSHSAA as we know it ought to know.

Unfortunately for left-leaning quiz bowlers, several of those anti-MSHSAA lawmakers also happen to be those who say hunger should be a motivating factor to get a summer job during a recession that may or may not exist and that the 10th Amendment to the Constitution supersedes Roe v. Wade.

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redliberte
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Post by redliberte »

Yeah, god love our wonderful state congressmen. They're all slimey.

Fresh Prince of Bradleyville
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Post by Fresh Prince of Bradleyville »

I can see the "excitement" about this new development is building, but I would love to chime in right about now.

It doesn't seem quite right that MSHSAA would do this, but then again, they've made me look like a chump before, so it isn't surprisng they would do this. Many words could describe this move, I'd like to choose sleazy and underhanded.

Now, for all of those parties worried I'm going into one of my crazy rants again, I'm not trying, and I'm sorry if you feel that way. The fact of the matter is MSHSAA isn't going to change how things work unless a major group of high schools brings it to their attention. I know we as individuals have voiced our complaints about the current system time and time again ever since the organization got hold of the reins and drowned the horse in the river. I believe they choose to ignore us.

True, there are some teams, in fact, many large school teams from Kansas City and St. Louis who are not pleased with the current system. The problem is the system won't change until we get more schools from across the state in different regions to go along with what we've been saying. That Missouri's teams deserve the best possible chance to win a national championship, and the rules and regulations that have been put out prevents you (the high schools of Missouri) from doing this.

Take for example, the southwest region of the state. Not many schools are fighting for change, and not many are joining in the fight. It wasn't until this year that I could convince my former high school's team to join the fight along with the few other schools in the area. Now, we are starting to build one of the larger teams in the area, with now twenty to twenty-five members, and all of them are taking what I have taught them from this board and what MSHSAA has shown them and are beginning to realize they are being robbed of the opportunity to be a great team, not only on the state level, but on the national level.

To add to the many ideas, I would politely like to disagree with Charlie. In my opinion, I believe a step system could work, and that there are only two ways to get MSHSAA to listen.

1. Using said step-system. I would like to see a somewhat hybrid MSHSAA-NAQT system, hybrid in the fact that it is a 20/20 format, but with four bonuses per tossup instead of three, and no negs in the matter. Keeping it simple to begin with could have a favorable effect, and adding in the changes slowly would prevent the teams from falling off the metaphorical "bike". Anyone more interested in my ideas can message me for details about this format, I'm just naming off a few ideas from it.

2. Promoting better tournaments in a wider variety of locations. Although there are presently many great college-style high school tournaments in the state, there aren't any in some locations that are easily attendable, like in the southwest region. Hopefully, the MSU team can change this fact with their tournament announced on this site. I also hope my former team may gain the initiative to host one. Even though districts was nothing short of a disaster, they received many compliments, especially when it came to moderating, and being able to power through the chaos without much noticable damage.

That being said, I would hope we could do as Gibbs has said in the past and voice our ideas to QG. I know we have all had our disagreements with him in the past, myself included, but the fact of the matter is that all of our talking does nobody any good, and we must help our former high schools in their fight (known fight or unknown fight) for a better game in Missouri, and just maybe, we can truly do some good for our former teams, the coaches that coach them, and our former teammates and friends that play for them.

With that note, I rid myself of these weird analogies about drowning horses in rivers, ranting, riding bicycles, and the somewhat pleasent yet powerful tone of this message (that's my belief), to which I have no clue where the words came from and how I attached them in this way. That kind of talking is entirely new for me.

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Charlie Dees
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Post by Charlie Dees »

1. Using said step-system. I would like to see a somewhat hybrid MSHSAA-NAQT system, hybrid in the fact that it is a 20/20 format, but with four bonuses per tossup instead of three, and no negs in the matter. Keeping it simple to begin with could have a favorable effect, and adding in the changes slowly would prevent the teams from falling off the metaphorical "bike". Anyone more interested in my ideas can message me for details about this format, I'm just naming off a few ideas from it.
I think you misunderstand what I mean by gradualism. As long as a format doesn't inherently cause things that are bad like hour long games and tournaments where it is completely unfeasible to guarantee teams more than 3 games and decide the winner in 7, I won't complain about it being used by Missouri. If MSHSAA adopted your proposed format, as the suburban conference did when Pickrell was writing, I think we would be in a much better position to attract high quality providers and make a well written state championship series, which could also be made better because there would be a lot more time freed up to be able to do things like run state as a complete round robin and get rid of the arbitrary scheduling and single elimination.
The gradual approach that I am openly opposed to is the one that says we should try to make 2 to 3 line long semi-pyramidal tossups be the norm for state play. Just because it is better than an abominable set like this year's does not make those questions good, and by compromising on the core issue of pyramidality, nobody wins.

rjaguar3
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Post by rjaguar3 »

Fresh Prince of Bradleyville wrote:That being said, I would hope we could do as Gibbs has said in the past and voice our ideas to QG. I know we have all had our disagreements with him in the past, myself included, but the fact of the matter is that all of our talking does nobody any good, and we must help our former high schools in their fight (known fight or unknown fight) for a better game in Missouri, and just maybe, we can truly do some good for our former teams, the coaches that coach them, and our former teammates and friends that play for them.
I sent this letter to Questions Galore a month and a half ago. To my knowledge, it was ignored.

Ted Gioia
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Post by Ted Gioia »

HSAPQ sent an email to Stacy Schroeder requesting information on making a bid for the state series, but did not receive a reply.

Fresh Prince of Bradleyville
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Post by Fresh Prince of Bradleyville »

ashkenaziCD wrote:
1. Using said step-system. I would like to see a somewhat hybrid MSHSAA-NAQT system, hybrid in the fact that it is a 20/20 format, but with four bonuses per tossup instead of three, and no negs in the matter. Keeping it simple to begin with could have a favorable effect, and adding in the changes slowly would prevent the teams from falling off the metaphorical "bike". Anyone more interested in my ideas can message me for details about this format, I'm just naming off a few ideas from it.
I think you misunderstand what I mean by gradualism. As long as a format doesn't inherently cause things that are bad like hour long games and tournaments where it is completely unfeasible to guarantee teams more than 3 games and decide the winner in 7, I won't complain about it being used by Missouri. If MSHSAA adopted your proposed format, as the suburban conference did when Pickrell was writing, I think we would be in a much better position to attract high quality providers and make a well written state championship series, which could also be made better because there would be a lot more time freed up to be able to do things like run state as a complete round robin and get rid of the arbitrary scheduling and single elimination.
The gradual approach that I am openly opposed to is the one that says we should try to make 2 to 3 line long semi-pyramidal tossups be the norm for state play. Just because it is better than an abominable set like this year's does not make those questions good, and by compromising on the core issue of pyramidality, nobody wins.
What I see here is arguing for the same point, basically. I completely agree with what you're saying Charlie when it comes to the prevention of the "bad" aspects of the game. I too find it impossible to declare a state champion when you only play against three teams in a round-robin, then go to a four team single elimination bracket. I can also agree with the point that the games take too long.

I can also see the view point you have on two to three line long semi-pyramidal tossups being the norm. My problem is that you can't take and throw the state's weaker teams to the sharks. I'm not saying I approve of what's going on now and what's happened. I am 100% against that.

I feel though that for now, questions should stay at a level of at least three lines, try to stay at about four lines, should try and limit those that are five lines, and, for now, stay as far away as possible from six or more lines. Once you start into those longer pyramidal questions, I don't know if those teams use to those questions may get an unfair advantage. This idea might be total paranoia, but I'll leave that to the people who have had the ability to play on pyramidal questions and can give me a better idea on what competition other teams have given them.

bdavery
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Post by bdavery »

To knock down the conspiracy theories -- MSHSAA is probably using the same 3-year-contract template that I agreed to when I did it.

That is, the winning vendor does it for 3 consecutive years unless either he wants to quit at the end of a year (as Pickrell did after his first year) or he is so bad that MSHSAA fires him --and it takes a lot for someone to actually get fired. Even as much as some people on this board hated my questions, lack of question quality does not constitute a firing offense.

So since MSHSAA put out the bid that QG won before last year, the coming year is their second year of the 3. I would anticipate QG doing Missouri this year and again the year after that--and then the contract would be up for bid for the 3 years after that.

As a note, I put up my copy of the MSHSAA request for bids on the hsquizbowl.org site, along with a similar bid from Oklahoma. There was lookie-loo interest in both, but no serious interest. In Oklahoma, I was the only bidder besides QG, and when the Oklahoma guy got on hsquizbowl.org to ask, "Which bid should we take?". all the 8-line-tossup people went so knee-jerk crazy that the Oklahoma guy threw up his hands and went with the less expensive of the two bids.

So most of you who didn't want QG to win either one of those did have a chance to keep them from winning both (which they did)--and now the price must be paid.

FishyFreshman
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Post by FishyFreshman »

I hardly think knowing more is an unfair advantage.

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Charlie Dees
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Post by Charlie Dees »

Once you start into those longer pyramidal questions, I don't know if those teams use to those questions may get an unfair advantage.
What does this even mean?
all the 8-line-tossup people went so knee-jerk crazy that the Oklahoma guy threw up his hands and went with the less expensive of the two bids.
The most widely accepted standard of high school tossup length used by companies like HSAPQ is between 5 and 6 lines in TNR 12 font, and NAQT's limit is 425 characters. Other than a few peripheral types of figures or high schoolers editing their first couple of tournaments not being able to contain themselves, this is the standard length for a regular tournament that is widely accepted. If you're going to try and paint us as insane people obsessed with length, at least use the facts.

Jason Loy
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Post by Jason Loy »

Colten, any advantage conferred by using pyramidal tossups is hardly unfair; if "throwing them to the sharks" means eliminating buzzer-race aided freak wins and rewarding the team that knows more, I'm all for it. I don't think any "conditioning" is needed to move from three-liners to five- or six-line pyramidal tossups; the latter simply provides more fair outcomes.

Bryce, to be blunt, the "good quizbowl" community does not care whose two-liners (This is their line limit, right? Or am I confusing this with another state?) are used; the differences in said question sets' ability to differentiate between teams are neglible. Oklahoma would be better off using guidelines that allow good questions to be written. I declined to bid on the state series because it is impossible to produce good questions under their restraints, something I've learned from foolishly working under similar restraints in the past.

The fact that MHSHAA does not terminate contracts based on question quality should be enough evidence to convince those wanting to change MSHSAA (at least the quiz bowl-related part; fighting tournament restrictions and such is certainly worthwhile) that the effort could better be spent elsewhere. How anyone that cares about quiz bowl quality would not fire QG after this year's sets is beyond me. Likewise, those in charge probably have a similarly tough time figuring out why our concerns are important to us. It would be much easier and more fruitful to concentrate on hosting (and/or writing) quality tournaments that use pyramidal questions, plenty of games for every team, and fair ways of determining winners.

jceeit
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Post by jceeit »

I have no problem with pyramidal questions hovering around five to six lines, that of course if the tournament starts in the Morning and not in the evening. Now I will say I have not played on the QG (I'd appreciate if someone would describe how bad in terms to what I've exxperienced so far) questions yet, because I played JV last year, but I have played on Some NAQT A sets, particularly at the Suburban Conference Quads, which were a god awful mess, and the problem apparently with Pyramidal questions is that if they are not written correctly they are terrible to play on. So if we want to go to pyramidal questions that all fine with me, but they better be well written, and in every game I played in at NKC and Quads had at least one question that was several either vague or Biographical/Dates clues followed by one extremely easy giveaway. I haven't really asserted my opinion on this yet, even though I think I'm on about the same page as most of you, I just thought I'd say something. If this post is out of place here just say and I'll move it to the Quads Topic.

Oh and of note, an excellent example of weaker teams being thrown to the sharks arose at quads. Well actually two, one at varsity and one at JV level.
Two Scores from Quads Round 3 at Ray South: (Give or take 10 points or so on the winning teams, but it's not really that important. I will also not the questions in that round were extremely hard for JV, no JV team at this site scored over 200.

Varsity: Kearney: 275 Ray South: 0
JV: Park Hill: 115 Ray South: 0

Oh and I have a question, can we discuss specific NAQT questions? Whats the rule on that.






<div class="editby">Edited by <a href='http://s4.zetaboards.com/Academic_Compe ... >jceeit</a>, Jul 28 2009, 12:40:37 AM.</div>

Jason Loy
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Post by Jason Loy »

Jon, NAQT has had issues with questions quality recently, but they have taken steps to improve their product (like cutting computational math from HSNCT and making it optional for IS sets) and have attracted more good writers for next year. I have confidence that most of the problems you experienced with NAQT's sets will be far less pronounced or disappear entirely in the near future.

In terms of quality, I really can't imagine any questions being worse than QG's, unless perhaps you've played quiz bowl on a combination of Trivial Pursuit questions and popsicle stick riddles.

NAQT IS sets for this year have been cleared for discussion.

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Charlie Dees
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Post by Charlie Dees »

jceeit, the sets you are citing playing on are actually not regular NAQT sets, but are called A-sets. The idea behind them was that they were supposed to be shorter and easier, and be like a stepping stone into good quizbowl just like what people are saying about making MSHSAA use semi-pyramidal 2-3 line questions as a compromise. However, NAQT's production of them has actually ended up so that basically they are the rejected questions from regular sets, and their answer selection is extremely variable in difficulty and importance, which creates sets that absolutely are problems. It is kind of unfortunate that Kansas City has had no real quality events ever run on better than A-sets, because you would see then all the advantages that we are talking about here. I would recommend going to hsapq.com and reading their samples, or events like Chitin Classic on quizbowlpackets.com. You can see there that when written with clues that are more relevant to the topic (plot details instead of biographical trivia and giveaways from pop culture etc.) and in descending order of depth, the questions are obviously superior.

Matt Weiner
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Post by Matt Weiner »

bdavery wrote:In Oklahoma, I was the only bidder besides QG, and when the Oklahoma guy got on hsquizbowl.org to ask, "Which bid should we take?". all the 8-line-tossup people went so knee-jerk crazy that the Oklahoma guy threw up his hands and went with the less expensive of the two bids.
Are you still mad at people disliking you for crapping out horrible questions on innocent high school quizbowlers and threatening to sue people who call you out for it, or what?

Charbroil
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Post by Charbroil »

jceeit wrote:Oh and of note, an excellent example of weaker teams being thrown to the sharks arose at quads. Well actually two, one at varsity and one at JV level.
Two Scores from Quads Round 3 at Ray South: (Give or take 10 points or so on the winning teams, but it's not really that important. I will also not the questions in that round were extremely hard for JV, no JV team at this site scored over 200.

Varsity: Kearney: 275 Ray South: 0
JV: Park Hill: 115 Ray South: 0

Oh and I have a question, can we discuss specific NAQT questions? Whats the rule on that.


It is worth noting that there are always going to be blowouts in Quiz Bowl, and that pyramidality isn't meant to prevent that. I think you (and Colten) are confusing the fact that NAQT/HSAPQ (and other good) questions focus on genuinely academic (and thus seemingly more difficult) topics and are meant to allow the more knowledgeable team to always buzz in first. Thus, you lose the random points weaker teams can get from being a millisecond faster on the buzzer--which I think isn't a problem, since those weaker teams should in theory know more of the answers as a general rule if they're important topics rather than pointless trivia (ex. First Ladies' maiden names).

And yes, discussion of specific NAQT questions has been allowed since NAQT Nationals (correct me if I'm wrong), or since the end of May.

Fresh Prince of Bradleyville
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Post by Fresh Prince of Bradleyville »

To all those out there... Believe me, I am all for eliminating buzzer racing freak wins. I am just somewhat paranoid.

You see, I have basicallly zero percent pyramidal experience, unless you count Shawn Pickrell's state series two years ago. What I mean is that some teams in the state haven't been to a district or state series. Thus, they have a lot less experience. If you throw them into the big leagues right away, I don't know what would happen. When it comes to the situation down in the southwest region, I feel there would be nothing but complaints that it's too hard.

Again, I might be suffering from acute paranoia, I hope so.

Jason Loy
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Post by Jason Loy »

Colten, your concerns are reasonable, and there's no way to tell if what you predict will indeed actually happen before we actually find out. However, I have at least some anecdotal evidence that might alleviate your fears.

In the '03-'04 and '04-'05 school years, there were zero pyramidal tournaments in central Arkansas (where I am from); in fact, this was true of the entire state. Beginning in the fall of '05, my college club (Harding) hosted two to three pyramidal tournaments per year (for three years) and got nothing but positive compliments; in fact, there was one coach who preferred pyramidal questions so strongly that he didn't take his team to anything else besides the obligatory state series (that I know of) despite the paucity of tournaments in his area. The same teams came over and over again, and except one case with a strange date conflict, we attracted anywhere from 15 to 25 teams. Large schools with traditionally strong quiz bowl programs were well represented, but we also attracted our fair share of small, rural schools that happened to have a couple kids who liked developing deep knowledge. Were their performances mind-blowing? Hardly. But they did enjoy the competition and learning and gradually became more competitive. The region (roughly an hour's radius of Little Rock) started sending four or five teams to HSNCT per year and occasionally even qualifying a team for the playoffs. I can see the same thing happening in southwest Missouri if our tournaments and others experience the same kind of success.

Of course, I would be lying to say that we managed to convert the entire region to good quizbowl. Last year, I wrote for several local-format tournaments and received countless complaints about how long and hard the questions were (three-liners, mind you, that the top teams were still eating for lunch). Some people just didn't get it. This might sound elitist, but pyramidal quiz bowl isn't for everyone. It's one thing to be outscored by 200 points in every match, but it's entirely another to let those kinds of defeats sap your desire to compete and learn more. If some teams want to play in tournaments in which they are more likely to win but do not provide the benefit of promoting real academic learning, I say let them. Our goal is not for every team to accept this style of play; that's unrealistic, even with the gradualism you seem to be advocating. It's simply to provide the surrounding teams the opportunity to experience pyramidal quiz bowl.

We are planning to host a fall tournament on NAQT questions (date yet to be determined), which are not as long and have less "hardcore" academic material than the house-written set we're hosting in January. I guess you could count that as a transition.

If it's convenient for you, you're certainly welcome to either observe our tournaments or staff them.

Awehrman
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Post by Awehrman »

In the '03-'04 and '04-'05 school years, there were zero pyramidal tournaments in central Arkansas (where I am from); in fact, this was true of the entire state. Beginning in the fall of '05, my college club (Harding) hosted two to three pyramidal tournaments per year (for three years) and got nothing but positive compliments; in fact, there was one coach who preferred pyramidal questions so strongly that he didn't take his team to anything else besides the obligatory state series (that I know of) despite the paucity of tournaments in his area. The same teams came over and over again, and except one case with a strange date conflict, we attracted anywhere from 15 to 25 teams. Large schools with traditionally strong quiz bowl programs were well represented, but we also attracted our fair share of small, rural schools that happened to have a couple kids who liked developing deep knowledge. Were their performances mind-blowing? Hardly. But they did enjoy the competition and learning and gradually became more competitive. The region (roughly an hour's radius of Little Rock) started sending four or five teams to HSNCT per year and occasionally even qualifying a team for the playoffs. I can see the same thing happening in southwest Missouri if our tournaments and others experience the same kind of success.
That's not entirely accurate. In 2002 Benton High School in conjunction with Chris Romero of Texas A & M hosted NAQT state at Benton. In 2003 we hosted NAQT state in Fayetteville, and in 2004 we hosted NAQT state in Morrilton. Prior to that the University of Arkansas hosted house-written pyramidal tournaments from 1998-2002. Harding, to your great credit, took it to the next level. A couple years after I left Fayetteville, the U of A team completely fell apart, as did western Arkansas' powerhouse team, Northside. The center of quizbowl in Arkansas has shifted to the center of the state. It seems like there is some good progress going on. I hope you are able to do similar things in Southwest Missouri, which has been a deadzone for quizbowl (outside of Adam Hill's Nixa teams) for as long as I can remember.

Jason Loy
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Post by Jason Loy »

Sorry, Andy. I forgot about the Morrilton tournament, as for some reason we were unable to make it that year. I attended the Benton tournament and enjoyed it immensely; in fact, that was my first pyramidal tournament. Your Arkansas tournaments did in fact lay the groundwork for the circuit in the northwestern part of the state, which probably played a role in familiarizing the coaches that came to our tournaments with pyramidal questions.

Apologies for the digression.

Fresh Prince of Bradleyville
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Post by Fresh Prince of Bradleyville »

Jason, thanks for diffusing most of my paranoia. The smaller teams in the southwest I believe are a little worse than those in the other regions, but I think with some more pyramidal style question tournaments in the southwest, this could be solved very quickly.

richbob
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Post by richbob »

I would like to clear up a misrepresentation on this board.

Four question providers bid on the Oklahoma State Tournaments. I had the contract for six consecutive years. My bid was exactly the same as it had been for those years. I was told by their director that the contract came down to me and Questions Galore, and that they selected the cheaper bid. (Hard times, I guess.)

Later, I found out that the OSSAA executive director had embezzled 457,000 dollars from their association. Perhaps this is why they accepted the lower bid.

One of my concerns is how Questions Galore can bid so low. You may recall that he charged 22 dollars a game prior to becoming the state provider. Once he got the bid,
he jacked his game prices to 35 dollars a game. So, we are providing him the ability to bid so low. By the way, he did the same thing in Oklahoma. They are paying 35 dollars a game, now, instead of the 25 dollars a game that I have charged them for the past fifteen years.

It is a shame that MSHSAA respected all of the suggestions by the advisory committee of coaches, but when it came to the most important issue, ..... duh, nothing.

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Charlie Dees
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Post by Charlie Dees »

I'm most amused at Bryce Avery presenting many false statements in this thread.

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