Division II thoughts

• From: Arsaces_I
• Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2001 16:25:23 -0700
• Message-ID: <000TDKBF3.000U3H33K.12170551-quizbowl_at_...>

I find it odd that, having posted little to this
board over the course of the year, I have now written
several times in the space of a week. My apologies if I
have made myself onerous; hopefully, I'll fade back
into the periphery soon.

Be that as it may, the
recent series of messages concerning Division II impels
me to share with you some thoughts I have had about
that phenomena for some time. Feel free to either
delete, disagree, or both.

First, let me state
that, while I consider myself an ACF purist and as such
am resistant to change in the implementation of ACF
philosophy, I do not consider the institution of a second
Division a bad one per se. Indeed, my own initiation to
circuit play involved repeated 500-point beatings at the
hands of King, Musgrove, and Brennan et al., and while
that pain motivated me to become better, it cost me a
lot of potentially excellent teammates who couldn't
handle the intensity. Second, I concur that ACF's
increase in difficulty has been vastly more steep within
the last three years (and recognise my own sins in
that regard via my over-difficult sets), and might
well be more intimidating to new players now than ever
before.

That said, I don't think having two _entirely_
separate Divisions is the best answer. It seems to me that
a second division can provide a useful "training
wheels" period for competitors by means of having
inexperienced teams play each other and not be fed to the
upperclassmen-graduate student killing machines. I think, though, that
either giving Div. II players different questions, or
even altering the difficulty of ACF at events
_specifically for Div. II teams_, is unwise. Players who spend
two years playing against easier teams on easier
questions will be doubly disadvantaged when they move to
Division I; not only will the teams be better, but the
questions will be harder, and the very usefulness Div. II
might have had will be destroyed. 

Allowing Div.
II players to experience ACF packets in all their
splendor will allow them to become acclimated to the
difficulty without the added impediment of being slaughtered
by veteran teams. Further, the standards of ACF will
be maintained to the satisfaction of those veteran
players in the other Division, and obviate the problems
(by now long familiar to readers of old flamewars)
that occur when questions are made artificially
easy.

These, at least, are my thoughts, which are not only
available for free, but are worth every penny of the price
paid.

SLK