Re: Analysis

• From: cdbarker
• Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2000 09:11:34 -0700
• Message-ID: <000SMRQHM.000HJ8D8L.12170551-quizbowl_at_...>

Well, it's 4am and I can't sleep. What to do?
Reflect and expound. That's what the Internet is
for.

How to interpret Dave Goodman becoming the youngest
millionaire (thus far) on WWtBaM? Well, I can only call it a
fitting capstone to what has been a tumultuous,
adolescent year for QB.

Just a brief summary of the
events since this time last year (and I'm doing this
from memory on a caffeine lingering, so I may be
completely out of the ballpark for some of these):
- CBCI
declared bankruptcy of some kind
- WWtBaM (and carbon
copies) premiered
- NLIT 9 proved that the circuit can
self-police
- Penn Bowl reached 60 or so teams
- New
programs appeared at (short, regional list) Bryn Mawr,
George Mason, Yeshiva; JHU, GW, UMCP all expanded
-
The high school circuit expanded generally; NAQT HS
Nationals expanded from 26 to 52 teams

To hearken
back to the records, at this time last year, people
were saying nice things about Mad City Masters and
Capital [sic.] Punishment I.

I'd like an
assessment. I don't have all the records here -- I purge my
e-mails frequently -- but I'd like to put forth the
hypotheses that, in the past year:
- The number of active
circuit teams outside CBI has increased
Agree, new
programs sprang up and fewer died off, which is a good
thing indeed. Sustaining a program is just as important
as founding one.

- The size of active teams
has generally increased
Hard to say, but I think
that most places at least stayed the same size which
is important.

- Tournament attendance has
generally increased
This could also be pointed out that
the number of available tournaments increased, which
led to this number, which is still
important.

- Nationwide recognition for QB-style achievement
has generally increased.
Yes, from squat to squat
and a half. We're still toiling in the backwater of
the backwater of obscuirity on a national scale.
You'd be lucky to have 3 people out of 100 average
Americans surveyed by Wiggery and Associates have a basic
idea what "College Bowl" or "Academic Competitions"
are. Am I complaining, no, I am merely stating that we
are still very much under the radar and that if
people do want to work to increase the visability of
programs like ours from mere curiosity to actually
something people care about, or at the very least, know
what they are, we still have a long way to go to
achieve that.
- And these are all Good Things