Review of Ohio QB from HSquizbowl.org

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Review of Ohio QB from HSquizbowl.org

Postby crbirdx1 » Thu Jul 09, 2015 6:34 pm

Not my words just an outside view of our state.

"Ohio: B-
I'll stand by something I said a long time ago: "Ohio has a somewhat fractured quizbowl circuit, with a few small pockets of intense competition (like in Mahoning County) and with the rest scattered around the state." But those previously very fractured subcircuits have lately started to come together a bit more often, thanks in part to people working on OAC to add more participation even if a lot of weird practices remain. There's still a lack of coverage in areas like the Southwest and even in relatively active areas the circuit isn't as deep as it should be outside of maybe the Cleveland area--a few key departures of coaches and some whole circuits could collapse."

here is the link to the entire post:

http://hsquizbowl.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=17581
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Re: Review of Ohio QB from HSquizbowl.org

Postby Get Lynned » Thu Jul 09, 2015 10:27 pm

I'm quite curious what notably not-Ohioan Chris Chiego considers to be "weird practices" in Ohio. The fact we don't have local high schools calling their invitationals "TITTIES" or "STANLEY CUP" ? (*cough* D.C./DelMarVa)

Going off his grading scale, I don't see how Ohio isn't an A.
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Re: Review of Ohio QB from HSquizbowl.org

Postby AlexConnor » Fri Jul 10, 2015 10:00 am

"Weird practices" could apply to the OAC format itself.

I think based on his criteria and scale that we're appropriately a B. We produce a number of very good teams but it's true that not enough teams travel even to other parts of the state. There are gaps in certain regions. For as populace as Columbus and Cincinnati are, there are not enough competitive and active teams from those metro areas.

I do think Ohio is trending upwards, however.
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Re: Review of Ohio QB from HSquizbowl.org

Postby swwFC » Fri Jul 10, 2015 11:31 am

Yeah, the OAC format could absolutely be accurately described as a "weird practice", even given the somewhat recent move to make quality OAC sets more prevalent. Coupling that with a range of other bizarre, isolated formats and practices around various parts of the state, I don't think he is making a stretch with that comment.

And I agree that a grade somewhere in the B/B- range seems appropriate. There are too many areas of the state where good quizbowl is under-utilized (or not utilized at all) to give the state an A using any reasonable metrics. But as Alex says, the outlook has thankfully been improving and hopefully it continues to do so.
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Re: Review of Ohio QB from HSquizbowl.org

Postby Get Lynned » Fri Jul 10, 2015 3:58 pm

Yeah, that seems fair when you put it like that. I do wonder if for instance Ohio were to meet the all the criteria for an "A" quizbowl state yet were hampered by the outside perception of OAC being "weird". My main apprehension was that Ohio enjoys quite a bit of high-quality tournaments figuratively all over the place, and most tournaments not only run quite well but also bring in various schools, active and not-active. So what is there to be done?
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Re: Review of Ohio QB from HSquizbowl.org

Postby Bluejay » Sat Jul 11, 2015 7:21 pm

I think looking at Chris's original criteria might help to see why he gave a B- for Ohio:

Breadth of Good Quizbowl
How many places across the state are running good quizbowl tournaments and competitions? Are all the major metro areas included? Are there rural schools participating or just metro schools? Are only a few areas active or is pretty much the entire state active? Could a new team get to a good quizbowl tournament in only a few hours drive or would every trip be basically an overnight all-day drive? Are there many AUK and NAC or other bad quizbowl-only participants that crowd out good quizbowl teams and tournaments?


This is definitely a place where Ohio isn't perfect; as mentioned, the Columbus and Cincinnati areas (I wish my job didn't kill any chances of me doing anything for the latter this past year, because this is an area where good QB has backslid with Walnut Hills and Sycamore not doing much anymore) don't have nearly enough going. The other major metro area in Ohio that doesn't have enough good QB is Toledo. (I'm not counting OAC here because I don't know how that factored into Chris's evaluation.)

Aside from that, there are a handful of teams that still attend Chipbowl for whatever reason. As far as getting rural areas going, this is definitely something I feel Ohio is doing better than most states, with the number of tournaments Greg's hosted in such areas of Ohio.

Depth of Good Quizbowl In the areas with quizbowl, how many teams compete in it? Is it just a handful of teams out of many possible schools or do pretty much all the major schools in the area participate? Are tournaments large with many teams and good quizbowl scheduling practices or are they small and single-elimination (or entirely double-elimination?)? Do schools normally just play one or two tournaments or do they play multiple tournaments over the year along with nationals?


Again, I'm not sure how OAC fits into this (although I do personally feel that the Regionals format could be improved). I do think this is an area Ohio's been good with; the only tournament I can think of where attendance really backslid this past year was Ohio State's. Still, as noted, in a good number of regions most teams won't travel much (you don't see a lot of Youngstown or Columbus area teams traveling to other cities to play tournaments, for example).

Institutional Support or Opposition (including state championships) Is there an official state organization that coordinates quizbowl and does that state organization support good quizbowl? Are there resources available for new teams to help build themselves and assistance for coaches (like a coach's association)? Does the state championship (and any local/regional championships) use good quizbowl questions and practices or bad? Is there a lot of AUK or NAC participation or leagues that use bad quizbowl questions and practices?


I don't know if Chris has seen the most recent OAC Regionals/States set, but given the reception it got throughout the state, I feel like it can only be a positive thing, assuming the set's quality is kept in future years (a very important thing, as I'm sure the OAC Committee is aware).

I'm guessing Chris didn't give the best marks here either, since OAC isn't in charge of TU/B quizbowl in the state, even if a good number of committee members do run such tournaments, so Ohio can't be compared to other states since there isn't an organization like MOQBA or IHSSBCA that is in charge of TU/B. That would be perfectly okay except for Chris's statement "a few key departures of coaches and some whole circuits could collapse." This is something I am a bit concerned about; imagine the Ohio circuit if there's no Greg Bossick, David Jones, et al.

Overall I'd agree with the general assessment (though I'd give a B, not a B-, which is the same grade as the state I'm currently in and I believe Ohio > Tennessee right now); there's lot of work to do, especially in certain areas of the state, but things are definitely looking up. Still, we need to get more people involved, especially in those problem areas.
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Re: Review of Ohio QB from HSquizbowl.org

Postby Get Lynned » Fri Jul 17, 2015 2:22 am

Bluejay wrote:as mentioned, the Columbus area[s] doesn't have nearly enough going.

A lot further ahead of where we were at last year, that's for sure. The good thing is the networking is starting to come into place. More teams are becoming involved, slowly. The line of communication, let alone connection, still doesn't exist with a lot of schools in our area however (and I don't think anyone interested in this cause knows how to even open those up and get that going, given that for instance Hilliard schools don't do In the Know and evidently no league play). The bad part is that outside of Franklin County, the areas are pretty much riddled with either bad quiz bowl, apathetic and usually transient coaching, or a combination of those two things. The league that stretches into Madison, Union, Delaware (the other two Olentangy schools are still doing this league... /sadface), and Marion Counties does Chip and I don't think any of the coaches nor the commissioner are interested in doing anything else for league play. I wouldn't characterize their coaches as being apathetic, but probably not that energetic or interested in learning a new idea to an old way of doing quiz bowl. The Licking County League is supposedly just awful quiz bowl in general. The Mid-State (Academic) League of Fairfield, Licking, and Pickaway (plus Whitehall in Franklin) has decent quizbowl properties but of course half of the schools get new coaches every year, many going through two or three over the course of three-to-four years, so the foundation to even get half of these coaches to care and take a Saturday tournament in isn't very good. So I'm not sure what lay people such as myself, teachers such as Cortney that don't have many connections with the schools to the south and east of Columbus, or any other interested parties in Central Ohio can do with that. Unless the Ohio Capital Conference and the Mid-State League actually count quiz bowl towards the all-sports standings, I fear most of these aforementioned schools in these areas are just simply going to see little reason to have interest in participating.

Still, as noted, in a good number of regions most teams won't travel much (you don't see a lot of Youngstown or Columbus area teams traveling to other cities to play tournaments, for example).
Not that I want to get contentious about this, but this is probably a bigger issue with Youngstown than Columbus given the only Mahoning County school that has any recent history of traveling to more than a couple tournaments has been South Range. Hubbard and/or Boardman have been to tournaments in PA, yes, but in terms of Ohio... not too many. For that matter, even with Cleveland the only schools that have consistently been on the move and has been leaving NE Ohio have been Olmsted and Solon. I don't think Beachwood has ever left Cuyahoga County for an Ohio TU/B tournament that wasn't an A-set or NAQT state. OK... now I'm getting a tad off track but I feel like your statement undermines the effort and energy schools such as Dublin Scioto, Fisher, St. Charles, (and now) Liberty have put in to go to the tourneys in western Ohio and even a tourney or two in NE Ohio. The one problem I see regarding the point you're making is that there's still this huge cluster of tournaments in NE Ohio (Olmsted, Solon, and Copley with an occasional Brush or other random school event sprinkled in or around that timeframe) during the month of February which is an awful month for winter in Ohio. While I think these Central Ohio schools that know about the events would love to go up and play them (I know I wanted to), the issue that arises is with the always questionable weather and the subsequent play-by-ear nature comes the uncertainty and often inability to make it up there be it no longer having the means (such as drivers), liability, and/or even district policy. I apologize in advance if it seems like I'm annoyed by this or trying to settle a score in the interest of being right, but I just wanted to make clear that it's not a matter of not having the interest but rather not having the means no matter how bad we want to (and I suppose there's likely some extenuating circumstances that best explain why the schools I mentioned or the schools in the areas I mentioned don't do much traveling outside their area code as we in the broader Ohio QB community would like to see them do).

Institutional Support or Opposition (including state championships) Is there an official state organization that coordinates quizbowl and does that state organization support good quizbowl? Does the state championship (and any local/regional championships) use good quizbowl questions and practices or bad?

[/quote] I'm going to assume Ohio probably didn't win many quality points for this criterion because there's probably a handful of non-Ohioans that automatically assume since OAC is a) a different format that isn't 20/20 and b) is a format that can be hard to write for if you've never played the format, that it should go in the "bad" pile. Oh well.
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Re: Review of Ohio QB from HSquizbowl.org

Postby Bluejay » Sun Jul 19, 2015 12:07 am

Yeah, maybe I didn't articulate my idea about teams not traveling outside of regions very well; certainly this is a bigger issue with Youngstown than anywhere else since barely any teams from there travel to a tournament outside the area. And I somehow forgot about Fisher Catholic when thinking about the Columbus area.

Aside from that, if a cluster of February tournaments up in Cleveland/Akron is preventing teams from outside those areas to attend tournaments, wouldn't the problem be solved to some degree by just hosting a tournament or two during that time frame in Columbus or Dayton or something? For a few tournaments per year Ohio's done fine by having multiple mirrors of the same set in different parts of the state (FKT, Northmont's OAC set in particular), so it's not a huge deal to do this (although this would cause problems with tournaments with huge draws like Solon's and Copley's in particular, so those dates would be avoided in all likelihood). I don't know enough about the various school policies that would prevent any kind of travel during the winter, but other than that I'm not sure how this is any different from any other month; I see zero NE Ohio tournaments in November, for example, and there aren't that many teams that would travel from Cleveland to Columbus anyway. Point is, I've probably overemphasized the regional traveling idea, although there are tournaments, in particular NAQT State, where this could be improved on.

Also non-20/20 formats shouldn't be assumed to be bad; VHSL is not in such a format and people consider it to be one of the most positive things about the state. Stuff like Illinois' Masonic and HSAPQ's state series sets aren't 20/20 either but they're written with good questions, which admittedly is an important aspect of whether it's considered "good" or "bad." You could apply that logic to things like NHBB too, technically, but nobody would argue that's bad quizbowl just because of the format (though as I've learned, this is really hard to write for because of said format). It is true that it is hard to write OAC when one has never played/observed it, and that's likely a large factor in HSAPQ's sets not being particularly well-received when they wrote them.
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