Re: New teams

walter_shandy · Mon, 05 Nov 2001 14:08:22 -0800

Matt's points:

"a) Being an above-average
team doesn't mean being assholes."

I, as a guy
who has captained more near-.500 teams in just over 2
years than most players do in 4, would like to say that
I haven't had any problems with the attitude of
winning teams. Maybe when facing the teams they're
beating 500-30, they act differently than when facing the
teams they're beating 400-150 (that's 300-120 by ACF
standards)... I don't know. If they really are annoying their
weakest opponents (for reasons other than winning 500-30,
which is really just a function of them knowing more
stuff and can't be helped), that's not good. At the
same time, I don't think anyone wants fear of
assholiness to detract from friendly rivalry, jokes, or even
a bit of trash talk. I am sure that there have been
good teams who were too arrogant, and I'm also sure
that there have been bad teams who were oversensitive.
For what it's worth, though, the worst behavior by
players at tournaments I've been to has come, not from
the winning teams, but frequently from the losing
ones.

"b) I don't know how closely age and quiz-bowl skill
are related." 

Ain't that the truth. I'd say
it's more a matter of not knowing how closely time and
improvement are related, though. I don't think I've greatly
improved as a player since my freshman year... gradual
improvements here and there, yes. The current me could beat
circa-1999 me, yes. But nothing great... on the other hand,
I've gone from clearing 10 PPG in practice at trash
questions to placing 4th in scoring at TRASHionals... so,
while studying Benet's and such (something I refuse to
do, though I am going to start keeping a notebook as
soon as I can find a pen...) might be helpful if
soul-suckingly, one can post substantial improvement simply by
playing large numbers of questions... But there are
several freshmen who could beat John Nam. I suppose what
I'm saying is probably what Matt's saying... it
varies from person to person. There's a bit of skill
involved that you can't really duplicate with practice,
though, I think...

I have to get ready for
practice. I might finish this later, but I probably won't,
as the more I look at it the more it resembles
pointless rambling.