NAQT ICT Kudos

Matt979 · Mon, 10 Apr 2000 22:26:26 -0700

Based on what I saw at the time and what other
people observed later, it seems fair to say that the
National Academic Quiz Tournaments 2000 Intercollegiate
Championship Tournament went well. There are a lot of people
without whom that could not have been the case. I
intended to thank them personally in any case, but I've
gotten the go-ahead to extend official kudos from NAQT
itself. Sincere thanks to, in no particular
order:

1. The teams themselves: This year's ICT featured
some amazing matches, especially the final
Illinois-Chicago games. Teams demonstrated a combination of
competitive intensity and friendly love-of-the-game spirit
that gave the site a very enjoyable atmosphere.
Congratulations, of course, are in order for title winners
Illinois (Division I), Princeton (Undergraduate) and
Harvard (Division II). Special thanks are in order for
MIT and Carleton, each of whom brought several buzzer
systems.

2. The game officials: We had almost 60 people
moderate, keep score and run the headquarters. I am always
impressed that people are willing to spend an entire
weekend making it possible for players to compete. While
space does not permit mentioning everyone by name (I
will try to e-mail you all, though), special thanks to
(again in no particular order):

A. Elmer Smith,
Vice President of the Boston University club. Elmer
spent the entire tournament in the HQ room, keeping
everybody on the correct round and helping NAQT stat guru
Mike Burger stay on top of the data. Thanks to them
(and Matt Harper-Nixon), power-ranked game assignments
were posted on-time at convenient places.

B.
Matt Harper-Nixon, BU '99. After reading Friday night,
Matt graciously agreed to join the HQ crew for the
Saturday power ranking crunch and later read a Division II
playoff match. He also procured pizza for the game
officials' Saturday lunch and (perhaps along with Elmer)
retrieved scoresheets from another building.

C. Ed
Cohn: On Saturday, we had four Division II rooms in the
Theology Building. All the game officials involved deserve
gratitude. By checking out packets in advance and collecting
Theology scoresheets, Cohn made sure that he and his
brethren neither fell behind nor read the wrong
round.

D. MIT, Harvard and Brandeis, for combining to
contribute at least a dozen officials and even a last-minute
entrant (Brandeis) into the Division I
field.

Final point of kudos for game officials: While it's
certainly fun to watch the best teams play as much as
possible, somebody has to read that 41-vs.-42 ladder play
match or battle of winless teams late Friday night. The
best Division I moderators were consistently assigned
the powerhouse games, yet one unintended consequence
of this (at least in the schedule I drew up for
Friday) was that certain rooms consistently saw the
weakest teams play. That assignment implies nothing about
the quality of readers in those rooms; they drew the
short straw, and I thank them for their
patience.

3. The Boston University club itself. President Jon
Couture drew up the bid over a year ago, maintained a
nifty web site and marshaled the BU forces (and their
roommates and friends) along the way. Treasurer Sarah
Harriman booked the rooms and let us store everything from
trophies to notepads in her room before the tournament.
Jon and Sarah both organized the airport rendezvous
sessions. Mark Coen contributed his expertise and
institutional memory, as well as a place for me to crash in the
days before the event. Coen arranged the conference
space in which NAQT held its annual meeting. Kassie
Werner served as liaison to the hotel salespeople and
kept me sane during that process.

It feels as
though there are people I'm forgetting, but my ride home
from work waits ever patiently. More thoughts to come
soon.

Sincerely,
Matt Bruce
ICT Coordinator