rdfromsolon wrote:Not sure if this the right thread to post this, but I was wondering why the rule that "Students may not participate in college/university level quiz bowl teams or tournaments as a college/university team member. Any student(s) who has (have) played in a regular season tournament without school authorization is ineligible for OAC regional/state competition." exist. In my opinion, neither of these makes it unfair for someone to compete in OAC.
Also, why does the official OAC rules state that teams must have 4 players? I would expect this might discourage schools with smaller programs from attending OAC tournaments.
Thanks!
As far as playing on college teams go, the stance of the OAC Committee is that you must only play for one team during a season. For instance, when a student goes to a CTC/JVS type school, they are given the choice of whether to play quiz bowl for their home school or for their CTC/JVS. They cannot play on both teams during the same academic year. Likewise, a student must choose whether they are part of the high school team or the college team. I know we all hate the stock sports analogies but it is that way in every other high school activity/sport as well. To be clear though, high school students are allowed to play in college tournaments so long as they are playing under their high school's name and not with college teammates. If someone does choose to participate in a college quiz team, they can still participate in all aspects of high school quiz bowl outside of OAC Regionals and State.
When it comes to the teams being required to have four players, the rule that talks about having 4 to 8 players states at the end that at the discretion of the tournament host, the team may play with 3. And in practice, teams have been allowed to play with however many - whether it be 1, 2, or 3. I am going to put this on the list for discussion for our next meeting to make sure that we clean up the language here.
Hope that answers your questions!