In my last post on the PB theme, it should be noted that I have not attended Michigan MLK, PB, or Kleist this year. Furthermore, while many will conclude that I am not the biggest fan of Penn Bowl - I never said that "diverse fields, accessible questions, or upsets" were necessarily bad things, and my opinions on that subject (or any other issues relating to QB worldview) aren't really relevant to the discussion. My fundamental point was that Penn Bowl is an established brand, with an established customer base, and that it fulfills the wishes of the majority of its customers such that the PADT has little or no incentive to do anything different next time around. And as such, there is little point in arguing, unless some circuit-wide groundswell erupts. As Andy pointed out there are generally two different viewpoints among people engaged in the activity. If so, then Penn Bowl has consistently been the shining symbol of the "It's just a game" viewpoint. The institutional makeup of the Penn team, and the structural design of the tournament yield the same things year after year, though often in varying degrees: 1. a large, and fairly diverse field 2. questions that are accessible even for teams in the bottom quartile 3. a larger number of playoff upsets than other tournaments 4. Complaints from people who believe it was not effieciently administered, question quality was poor, and the playoffs were unfair to those teams that won their brackets. And there is nothing wrong with that, in as much as Penn Bowl draws more entries than any other tournament. (save perhaps NAQT Nationals, were the field size not capped) Holding arguments over "improving" Penn Bowl is an exercise in futility. It is an "event" and a symbol. Penn, by holding the tournament the way they do, aims at and hits a certain market. They can run things differently and better, but not in such a way that they would gain any major benefits commensurate with any extra effort. Such a tournament already exists - it is called NAQT Nationals. Perhaps, those people who want to see Penn Bowl radically changed also wish to see the Pope hold Yom Kippur services at St. Peter's Basilica. I am not one of those people. I reserve judgement on the tournament, so I speak to Penn Bowls in general instead. There have been enough of them for me to do so. Love it or hate it, it is one of the great constants of the QB universe. D.L.G.
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