PB13 - A JV opinion

• From: Dan <m00c0w_at_krazyc0w.yahoo.invalid>
• Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 20:59:57 -0000
• Message-ID: <bv3v4d+ig9g_at_...>

There's no doubt that a well-run tournament is everyone's goal (TDs and
players alike), but speaking as this being my first Penn Bowl (or any
tournament of this magnitude) I suppose my own opinion of this weekend
will vary to some extent from that of many of quiz bowl's upper echelon.

Samer deserves a lot of credit for being able to manage something this
large year after year, and for generally doing it well.  I couldn't
begin to fathom how to run something of that size and do it well - and
still be able to laugh at myself at the end of the day.

Perfect packets aren't to be expected, and I was generally pleased with
the difficulty level.  I'll let you experienced players debate the
particulars of this; at this point I'm not qualified enough to offer an
informed opinion.

The level of moderating, IMHO, left a little something to be desired. 
There were some great moderators - as there always are - and then there
were some pretty horrible ones. Overall the quality was good, but there
were two mods in my bracket in particular that came to mind.  One had
issues pronouncing such words as Tupelo and generally being heard (I
know Brandeis was in our bracket and had some issues with this guy) and
another who may/may not have had a bad round and just had trouble
avoiding multiple protests in our match.  Had not another moderator had
the round off and been sitting in the room with us, things might have
gotten even worse.

Sportsmanship generally was pretty good.  I've been known to make some
less-than-positive remarks about other teams (as I'm sure everyone has
from time to time), but usually those are kept within the team and out
of earshot of others.  It's not a huge issue (or at least as not as big
as I'm probably making it sound here), but is a little decorum during a
match too much to ask?

With regard to scheduling, eh, nobody's perfect.  It sucked that
Maryland B only got to play one match Friday night (we were scheduled
for 3), and 3 of the top 5 teams came from the same bracket, but Adam
(among others) has already said enough about that.

Just my $.02.

- (Maryland's other) Dan G.