RE: OAC Regionals/States Eligibility Rules

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RE: OAC Regionals/States Eligibility Rules

Postby csa2125 » Sun Jan 22, 2017 10:49 pm

As a high school quiz bowl player who would like to play as much quiz bowl as possible, in as competitive of an environment as possible, and one who knows a number of like-minded players, I’m a little confused about a certain OAC rule that runs counter to this purpose. According to the OAC Constitution, “The Ohio Academic Competition (O.A.C.) is established for the promotion of student academic competition on an interscholastic basis and to qualify schools for national competition.” I know of no mechanism by which teams can qualify for either PACE or HSNCT through OAC-format tournaments, but that isn’t exactly the topic of this post.

The rule is the one that reads:

“C2. Any student in ninth through twelfth grade may participate on a school team at regionals and state (players in K-12 may play at other tournaments). The student must be currently enrolled in that school. 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. These rules only apply to regular season tournaments that charge an entry fee. Regular season is defined as September 1 through the OAC state finals tournament the following spring.”

There are two kinds of people who are prevented from playing as much quiz bowl as possible by this rule: middle schoolers and dual-enrolled students.I’m going to assume that these rules are in place to ensure that no one has any advantage or disadvantage over another for reasons other than knowing more or being a better quiz bowl player; if they are other reasons for these rules being in place, inform me.

ON MIDDLE SCHOOL:
First, I can see that being able to play more than four seasons of Regionals and States could somehow give someone more experience with the format and more practice material than the normal high school student could have. But given that OAC Regionals and States questions are now being released for free to all after the competition closes, everyone regardless of age has access to those questions, and have the same opportunity to play them against other teams through scrimmages or the like, giving them no more learning material or experience with the format than anyone else could have. So what advantage would a player have if they played an additional year of OAC Regionals compared to someone who hasn’t had that additional year, but has the same material and same opportunity to practice the format?

I can understand that someone could have an additional year of quiz bowl practice if allowed to play HS questions in middle school, but that same person could also spend a year studying on their own without even having a middle school team to play on. And if one is worried about the idea of someone staying another year in high school to play OAC States again by repeating their senior year or such, couldn’t that be covered by some modification of this rule?:

“C3. A participant’s eligibility at regionals and state shall not exceed eight high school semesters (or equivalents).”

This rule would need to be modified if middle schoolers were allowed to play Regionals and States, so as to not punish them for wanting to play more OAC and depriving them of a shot at States during their senior year. But, I can’t find any other way in which a middle schooler could receive an unfair advantage from playing another years of Regs and States.

Given all this, what else is there that would necessitate keeping middle schoolers from playing Regs and States be?

ON DUAL-ENROLLMENT:
One response to the issue of dual-enrolled students seems to be as follows: high school students can’t play both high school football and college football, so they shouldn’t be able to play both high school and college quiz bowl. But this ignores that quiz bowl is very distinct from football, for a number of reasons, many of which involve the fact that quiz bowl is not a physical activity. But I don’t want to focus on this, and instead want to deal the fundamental question both for football and quiz bowl eligibility rules: does dual-enrollment give a player or their team an unfair advantage or disadvantage compared to others?

Given that any information one can learn for quiz bowl through college practices or college tournaments can also be learned from the library or internet, I can’t see there be any unfair advantage given to a dual-enrolled student through somehow having greater access to knowledge.

Now, it is true that college players do write OAC questions, and that question security is important. But, it is possible for a high schooler to be on the same team as a college writer for OAC and for that writer not to divulge information about OAC questions to that high schooler--ACF trusts OSU A not to tell OSU B all the answers to A’s packet at their submission tournaments, and usually A does not tell OSU B all the answers. Even then, one can cheat with the aid of their OAC-affiliated coach or Facebook-acquaintance just as easily as with the aid of a college teammate, if not easier. Should OAC not allow Solon or Ben Logan to play Regionals and States, since Bergman and Melton are OAC members who can easily divulge answers or other information that could give their team an unfair advantage? (though both are admirable individuals who wouldn’t do that anyhow)
To my knowledge many committee members don’t write or edit questions for OAC and, to my knowledge both writers and non-writers have the same penalty for helping some team cheat on OAC questions. The same is true of persons at college regardless of OAC-affiliation or whether they write for OAC. Therefore, dual-enrolled students should be able to interact with both these kinds of person without forfeiting their Regionals/States qualification (given they don’t cheat in some other way).

Further, dual-enrollment is a great way to learn a lot, and get college credit tuition-free; I don’t want anyone to be deprived of this experience because their parent or coach wants them to play OAC, or to be deprived of playing more quiz bowl because they decided to pursue dual-enrollment. Discouraging students from dual-enrolling does not promote “the value of academic endeavors and [foster] the importance of learning” as OAC’s Constitution mandates the organization do.

Yes, I can play at any other tournament at the high school level just the same, being dual-enrolled, but I think OAC should act in their own best interest and let more people play, since their goals include “increas[ing] the number of schools and students participating in academic competition.“

Why shouldn’t middle schoolers or dual-enrolled students be allowed to play States or Regionals then?

TL;DR : OAC should allow more people who want to play more OAC to play more OAC, especially middle schoolers and dual-enrolled students, given these players have no unfair advantages at those tournaments, which such players do not.
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Re: RE: OAC Regionals/States Eligibility Rules

Postby BobKilner » Mon Jan 23, 2017 1:26 pm

I'm going to let someone else that was on the committee at the time the rule was passed answer this.

I was vehemently against it when it passed, although I understood some of the concerns raised at the time. I never liked the argument that "you can't do that in sports, so why should you be allowed in quizbowl." I think liability issues are a more-likely culprit than anything else, but I would rather not speculate. Hopefully someone who was in on the discussion can answer with what the main points were when it was discussed and passed.
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Re: RE: OAC Regionals/States Eligibility Rules

Postby gbdriver80 » Mon Jan 23, 2017 2:33 pm

I am bogged down at work/school right now but will respond as soon as I can!
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Re: RE: OAC Regionals/States Eligibility Rules

Postby trbenedict » Mon Jan 23, 2017 5:15 pm

For what it's worth, I raised the question of middle school eligibility this fall via email to Joe C., and the committee did discuss it, ultimately upholding the rule that OAC Regionals and State are off-limits to players younger than 9th grade as well as re-committing to the eight-semester rule. Their notes can be viewed here and also are linked on the home page of the OAC website: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwsUjF ... llazg/view

As an individual member of the Ohio community, I still think that the OAC postseason should be open to all players PK-12 who have not graduated from high school. I was surprised that the deliberations on the MS issue were as unanimous as they seemed from the writeup. However, I can understand the issues raised in those deliberations, understand that the issue is more complicated than it may appear on the surface, and certainly don't begrudge anyone their opinion, even if it is different than my own.

I could go more into the issue of both MS eligibility and high school-to-college eligibility, but it would be a long-winded way of essentially saying I agree with Clark and Bob, so I'll spare everyone for now...just wanted to acknowledge that there was discussion on this relatively recently.
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Re: RE: OAC Regionals/States Eligibility Rules

Postby gbdriver80 » Tue Jan 24, 2017 12:28 pm

So let me try to address every point here as best I can from both a committee and a personal perspective.

Middle School
As Tyler noted, the committee had a pretty thorough discussion on this in the fall at his request, and I took all of the responses and synthesized them into that summary document. Also as Tyler noted, it seemed to be pretty unanimous in support of not allowing them to play at Regionals and State, keeping in tact the 8 semester limit.

On a personal level, I was initially surprised at the unanimous support for not letting middle school students play. However, after much thought, I can see some of the problems that it creates, especially the fact that in many instances, a student in middle school may not be directly tied to a certain high school, particularly in the case of parochial schools. I know this problem can be alleviated with enough governing rules but it still is a gray area that causes me pause.

Playing in College

I was not a member of the committee when the "Ike Jose" rule was passed but if I am recalling correctly, I was present at the meeting. At the time, there was much hand wringing about the liability it could cause a school; however, I am not one to comment on that because I never (and still don't) understand that case. There very well may be one, but if there is, it is outside of my understanding. The other part seems to come back to the sports analogy, which yes, is not always a good comparison for sure. If someone else was present and can remember some more of the discussion at the time, I am sure they will chime in.

Personally, I feel very different about the "Ike Jose" rule than the middle school issue. I know some people will argue that the opportunity to participate in the college circuit is not available to all players; thus, it gives people an unfair advantage. However, I don't find that argument to hold water because not everyone is given the opportunity to play for a coach willing to travel with them around the state and country. Being able to play, practice, etc. is always good in my opinion.

Back under the realm of OAC however, the rule has been on the books for many years at this point, and anyone choosing to play in college, full well knows what they are choosing at that time.

Conclusion
Hopefully that gives some clarity to the issue as far as OAC goes and as far as my personal opinions go. I have already written myself a note to put it on the agenda for this summer just to formalize some discussion among the committee members, and anyone that wishes to attend that meeting and present any of their feelings is definitely most welcome to do so!
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Re: RE: OAC Regionals/States Eligibility Rules

Postby Get Lynned » Tue Jan 24, 2017 12:59 pm

The 'Ike Jose Rule' predates my involvement in Ohio quiz bowl, but I remember the thread(s) over on the previous incarnation of the Ohio board (RIP createphpbb.com/oac) and if I recall correctly, one liability concern was that Ike Jose apparently would drive himself to HS and college events in-state and out-of-state. While I'm not entirely sure if Ike was doing that under the blessing of Stow-Munroe Falls' district, Ike's QBWiki page appears to corroborate the understanding he'd drive himself to events as a high school student.


Regarding middle school involvement for the HS OAC Competition: in my opinion, the status quo works fine and probably in the best interests of all OAC participants. If anyone familiar with basketball remembers the case of OJ Mayo (who played six seasons of high school basketball), they'd recognize how advantageous it can be to get a head start on competing on a HS level. Even though sports don't necessarily correlate into quiz bowl, all teenagers go through maturing and refining processes and if a player has a head start on playing 'the game' (OAC Regs+States) then common sense would suggest they'd have a leg up experience wise against their similarly aged peers when they're high school students. Additionally, Joe, and various members of the Committee, make a solid point that middle schools don't necessarily tie into specific high schools. By no means am I suggesting anything nefarious or otherwise against standards currently takes place, but in the case of multiple HS districts what stops a public middle school student who (according to their district's school-assignment policy) should be attending High School A but instead plays for High School B in the HS OAC competition (e.g. a Westerville City Schools student who is assigned to attend Westerville North once they reach high school, but decides to play for Westerville Central's HS team as a middle school student?) Fortunately, Ohio quiz bowl doesn't experience a phenomenon of high school quiz bowlers 'shopping' for a good HS program to play in (much unlike Ohio high school sports), but if the HS Competition were to allow middle school students to participate then that door can open. Sure, you could say its already open as students can more/less transfer schools freely in Ohio, but what is to be done if MS students can play in the high school OAC Competition and within a few years we see students play for different schools out of quiz bowl interests?


I would like to see a middle school OAC Regs/States competition come about soon, though.
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Re: RE: OAC Regionals/States Eligibility Rules

Postby BobKilner » Tue Jan 24, 2017 2:10 pm

I would like to see a middle school OAC Regs/States competition come about soon, though.


This is one of those things that we know is coming down the pipeline in the future (more than likely), but that we agreed to put on hold for awhile. I think we were waiting for the MS circuit to expand some before even talking about creating an event in that regard.
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Re: RE: OAC Regionals/States Eligibility Rules

Postby harip » Wed Jan 25, 2017 7:50 pm

As a player myself, I would like to offer my personal stance on the issue. I personally see no problems or "advantages" with a middle-schooler/dual-enrolled student playing for a high school team. In fact, I think it shows a dedication to quiz bowl and becoming a better player.

If the issue is with letting these groups of play, I have two things to say:

1. Why has the committee overlooked homeschooled players gaining an advantage? They have much more of an advantage compared to middle-schoolers, since they can "shop" for which high school they can participate at. This allows them to be able to play with good players and go to regionals, while not having to be good themselves.

2. In this day and age, anyone who really wants to become better at quiz bowl has plenty of online resources at disposal. Middle schoolers can easily access high school questions, and high schoolers can easily access college questions, so there's really no point in restricting high school students from playing college quiz bowl and middle schoolers for high school for the sake of preventing them from learning deeper material.
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Re: RE: OAC Regionals/States Eligibility Rules

Postby trbenedict » Wed Jan 25, 2017 11:38 pm

Like Joe, my playing career overlapped with Ike's, but I wasn't looped into the statewide community enough to know exactly what rules were passed as a result of his approach to quiz bowl. I do remember (and correct me if I'm wrong) that he clashed with the OAC over issues of game format and maybe some other stuff and basically decided to take his schedule into his own hands, declining to play any OAC-format tournaments and filling the gaps with college events (this was during a time when there weren't nearly as many TU/B events in the state, and of course pre-dates the "closed mirror" era for ACF Regs, etc.). To that end, I wonder whether the "Ike Jose Rule" wasn't also partly motivated by personality differences with Ike himself (I'm not saying that I think the committee at that time was being petty, but I could see how quizbowl was starting to look like the Wild West at that point, and just from my foggy memory of the old forum I could see how Ike could be difficult).

Interestingly, Ike would never, as far as I know, have been in violation of the first provision of his eponymous rule, as he never played quizbowl for a college team (always solo). Whether he always had Stow-Munroe Falls's blessing is a different story...I would wager the answer was no, simply because of salutary neglect, but that's sort of beside the point when we talk about dual-enrollment.

What's interesting, too, about the current rule is that if high school teams play high school-only mirrors of ACF Fall, Regs, etc., that's completely within the bounds of propriety. If high school teams practice on college packets, that's also A-OK. As I understand it, high schoolers can practice with college kids, study with college kids, watch professors on YouTube, join a MOOC, sneak into lecture halls, even be enrolled in a university program while still attending high school, but as soon as they touch a buzzer in a college tournament for a college team they gain some untoward advantage that they couldn't get from all the legal methods outlined above. The only advantage I can see is that you get to hear this year's Terrapin or whatever before it's posted to the packet archive for everyone else, but as Joe points out high school teams miss out on hearing packets all the time because of scheduling issues, a coach or players who choose not to travel as much, etc.

I think Joe is right when he says that, whether you agree with it or not, C2 is on the books and has been for a while, and is a decently well-known wrinkle in the OAC handbook (other states, like Missouri, also have their own eligibility rules, so this isn't unheard-of in the greater quiz bowl conversation). I also think, as one person in the state, that it's time to revisit C2 and at least roll back the college aspect of the rule. The school-authorization piece is less of a sticking point in my personal opinion, and if liability is an issue for folks then I can see retaining some form of that provision. But as far as practice resources, etc. go, the game has jumped so far ahead of where we were in 08-09 that the barrier between college and high school is essentially nonexistent for a good chunk of the nation's best players. The way I see it, the goal of the OAC playoffs (not the committee itself) is to crown a champion for the state and reward excellence in quiz bowl, and I'm not sure if C2 is constructive in achieving those goals.
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Re: RE: OAC Regionals/States Eligibility Rules

Postby trbenedict » Thu Jan 26, 2017 12:25 am

BobKilner wrote:This is one of those things that we know is coming down the pipeline in the future (more than likely), but that we agreed to put on hold for awhile. I think we were waiting for the MS circuit to expand some before even talking about creating an event in that regard.


Until such an MS-only event exists, what would the committee think if an all-MS team qualified for and sought to attend Regionals? This would be analogous to how Middlesex has competed for the Connecticut HS state championship as "Middlesex Middle." If determining what team a middle schooler should play for is the biggest obstacle for some committee members, this would certainly eliminate any gray area while still letting enterprising MS players hear the questions without somehow unfairly advantaging any high school team.

For MS, changing rule C2 may make some player pools bigger than others and let high schools draw from multiple middle schools in their district...yet there is already a huge discrepancy in player pool size between, say, Fisher Catholic and Centerville, and the smaller schools have to deal with that challenge. I might feel differently if there were such a thing as OAC State for middle school, but even then I don't think starting a player younger than ninth grade on your OAC high school playoff team constitutes an unfair advantage. Weigh my position however you like, since last year and this year I did/do have an eighth grader on my varsity team, and our OAC postseason roster this year was/will be affected by the ruling this fall. For whatever it's worth, I don't think we'd be gaining an unfair advantage by playing an 8th grader on Regionals-level questions against the best juniors and seniors in the state. I'd feel the same way if Copley wanted to have Nathan on their varsity team, or if Liberty decided to use Arvind or R.J. Those big schools might never have the need to fill out a roster that way, but smaller programs might.

I suppose by making this argument I'm also somewhat rebutting the idea put forth in the OAC committee notes that allowing middle school players in the OAC playoffs only lets the "rich get richer"...it could just as easily widen the field and grow the game, at least until a viable OAC middle school postseason develops. MVS isn't a traditional power, but we've been trying to become more established, and in building a player base we've attracted students younger than 9th grade...to echo my points above about high school-to-college, those kids can practice on high school questions with the high school varsity and play against high school teams, even take high school classes (as some students do, particularly for math) but there is somehow an unfair advantage gained when you cross the threshold into the playoffs. To Tom's point, I would say middle school teams are already playing the game and getting experience...a leg up on experience is great, but we don't make rules about how long a person has to have played quiz bowl before they join a team. If I didn't get into quiz bowl until I was a junior, I'd have an experience gap against kids on other teams who had been playing since they were freshmen, but it would be odd to call that an unfair disadvantage during a competition.

The big stumbling block is determining who is eligible to play for which school, and that's the piece of the discussion I'm most sympathetic to. However, I don't find the gray area so hard to legislate. Middle school students attending their district middle schools would play for the high school they would attend in their district based on their address. This would mean in Tom's example, the player would have to play for Westerville North, and if they did not have a team, then that student could help start one (again potentially helping to grow the game). For independent and parochial schools that go beyond 8th grade, a middle school student would retain affiliation for that school. For the many independent and parochial schools that stop after grade 8, I see two ways forward. First would be to allow a student and his or her family to establish a feeder affiliation with an independent or parochial school in the area (for example, in Dayton, a lot of students in the Catholic middle schools intend to go to either Chaminade Julienne or Archbishop Alter). Once established with the OAC, that affiliation could not be changed over some set interval of time or until the student actually enrolls in a high school. The second, less gray-area way is to take a leaf from the sports book and allow non-public school students to play for their district's public high school if they don't have a team to join, thereby using residency again as the criteria for affiliation. This would handle the vast majority of cases...again, I really don't know how common middle school kids making OAC tournament rosters would be, especially when each school only brings one team to the playoffs. With something like this in place, I don't see the slippery slope of nefarious recruiting arising, at least no more than it already could exist trying to recruit high school players to switch schools or move to your district (which I don't think goes on now and hasn't in any recent memory). At any rate, to echo Hari, I don't think having middle school kids play high school OAC playoffs hurts the overall balance of the game or wrecks the format in its current iteration. I feel less strongly about it than I do the dual-enrollment rule though.
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Re: RE: OAC Regionals/States Eligibility Rules

Postby Get Lynned » Thu Jan 26, 2017 1:05 am

I think Tyler makes some good points. It would be interesting to see if the OAC Committee still feels the college quiz bowl parameter to Rule C2 to still be necessary.


(This is a little bit off-topic, but in response to Tyler's point about a 'wild west': while I also don't think the Committee was being petty by creating the 'Ike Jose Rule', it's also no secret that the OAC Committee - circa 2010/2011 - was the subject of much antagonism and derision on the part of some college club participants in the Ohio QB community. Obviously, relations between the two spheres are far better today. But my guess is, years ago, "you should roll back the dual-participation rule for reasons X, Y, and Z" probably sounded a lot less compelling when it came from the same mouths/keyboards that would spout strongly anti-OAC rhetoric and personal attacks toward committee members and their players.

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Pascal Plays Poker wrote:1. Why has the committee overlooked homeschooled players gaining an advantage? They have much more of an advantage compared to middle-schoolers, since they can "shop" for which high school they can participate at. This allows them to be able to play with good players and go to regionals, while not having to be good themselves.


As always, I'm glad to see new people posting on here. Thanks for stepping to the plate, Hari.

While your second point in your original post is pretty plausible and fair, I'm not quite getting what you're putting down in #1 (and I don't mean to sound harsh nor dismissive when I say this.) For one, homeschooled students attend... home school (unless any recent changes in ''school choice' policy have allowed for a little bit of gray area?) They don't attend a physical building, public or private. Ohio state law (ORC 3313.5312) allows for homeschooled students to participate in extracurricular activities for the public school in the district in which they reside. There isn't much 'shopping' really to be had, as far as I know. No private school is going to let a student that doesn't attend their building participate in their extracurricular activities, and my understanding of the Ohio Revised Code that concerns this is that one can not participate for a school district they don't even attend nor live in.

It would probably be good though if someone that is on the Committee can address what you're describing. I'm just more/less floating an idea or two that may explain whether or not what you're describing actually happens and if it is something that can even be tackled.
Last edited by Get Lynned on Thu Jan 26, 2017 2:45 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: RE: OAC Regionals/States Eligibility Rules

Postby Get Lynned » Thu Jan 26, 2017 2:21 am

trbenedict wrote:For MS, changing rule C2 may make some player pools bigger than others and let high schools draw from multiple middle schools in their district...yet there is already a huge discrepancy in player pool size between, say, Fisher Catholic and Centerville, and the smaller schools have to deal with that challenge. I might feel differently if there were such a thing as OAC State for middle school, but even then I don't think starting a player younger than ninth grade on your OAC high school playoff team constitutes an unfair advantage.


trbenedict wrote:MVS isn't a traditional power, but we've been trying to become more established, and in building a player base we've attracted students younger than 9th grade...to echo my points above about high school-to-college, those kids can practice on high school questions with the high school varsity and play against high school teams, even take high school classes (as some students do, particularly for math) but there is somehow an unfair advantage gained when you cross the threshold into the playoffs. To Tom's point, I would say middle school teams are already playing the game and getting experience...a leg up on experience is great, but we don't make rules about how long a person has to have played quiz bowl before they join a team.


To clarify my position: do I feel Team A with a seventh grader in one of the four seats would have an advantage over Team B with all high school students filling the seats in OAC Playoffs 2018 simply because its a younger player? No, I do not - what I would find as advantageous however would be if Team A - in say 2021 - has a student that accrued more than four years of OAC Playoff experience whereas Team B has no students with that much playoff experience because the opportunity to have middle school QB or middle school students competing for them was not afforded to that high school and its quiz team. I will say, however, if the eight semester clock were to be rid of and along came a 'pledge to play for private high school' provision to ensure parochial schools can have MS students playing for them (what Tyler described) then that would assuage my concern - a concern presumably shared by several members of the OAC Committee, judging by the comments on the ruling Joe published earlier this thread - of "well, not EVERYONE can get middle school students playing for them even if they wanted to because of reasons X, Y, and Z."



trbenedict wrote: To Tom's point, I would say middle school teams are already playing the game and getting experience...a leg up on experience is great, but we don't make rules about how long a person has to have played quiz bowl before they join a team. If I didn't get into quiz bowl until I was a junior, I'd have an experience gap against kids on other teams who had been playing since they were freshmen, but it would be odd to call that an unfair disadvantage during a competition.
For what it's worth, I was getting at earlier (than usual) OAC playoff exposure being advantageous (as opposed to early participation in regular quiz bowl in general) in that the questions are longer; the format is unique; and that the competition is usually stiffer than the average Saturday tournament or local league - all three conditions of which makes OAC playoff play different than playing NAQT events on a high school B team or a middle school team. I'm aware they're already playing in their own events - I ain't worried about that, nor do I think that's an advantage to the same degree as actually playing in the OAC playoffs is a year before high school (as a reminder, I'm talking about the accrual of experience from a 'head start' as being advantageous.) And to head off anyone noting "well you can practice on OAC playoffs questions, they're online": practice =/= playing in an actual game in the situation.

trbenedict wrote:The big stumbling block is determining who is eligible to play for which school, and that's the piece of the discussion I'm most sympathetic to. However, I don't find the gray area so hard to legislate. Middle school students attending their district middle schools would play for the high school they would attend in their district based on their address. This would mean in Tom's example, the player would have to play for Westerville North, and if they did not have a team, then that student could help start one (again potentially helping to grow the game). For independent and parochial schools that go beyond 8th grade, a middle school student would retain affiliation for that school. For the many independent and parochial schools that stop after grade 8, I see two ways forward. First would be to allow a student and his or her family to establish a feeder affiliation with an independent or parochial school in the area (for example, in Dayton, a lot of students in the Catholic middle schools intend to go to either Chaminade Julienne or Archbishop Alter). Once established with the OAC, that affiliation could not be changed over some set interval of time or until the student actually enrolls in a high school. The second, less gray-area way is to take a leaf from the sports book and allow non-public school students to play for their district's public high school if they don't have a team to join, thereby using residency again as the criteria for affiliation. This would handle the vast majority of cases...again, I really don't know how common middle school kids making OAC tournament rosters would be, especially when each school only brings one team to the playoffs. With something like this in place, I don't see the slippery slope of nefarious recruiting arising, at least no more than it already could exist trying to recruit high school players to switch schools or move to your district (which I don't think goes on now and hasn't in any recent memory). At any rate, to echo Hari, I don't think having middle school kids play high school OAC playoffs hurts the overall balance of the game or wrecks the format in its current iteration. I feel less strongly about it than I do the dual-enrollment rule though.

Said it earlier in this post, but this can be a good solution if C2 were to be rolled back: a solution for 'what can private schools do about this'. It's pretty creative and responsive to the various challenges private/independent high schools would undoubtedly experience when trying to get middle school students to play on the HS team (or a corresponding MS team) given the different enrollment procedures.
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Re: RE: OAC Regionals/States Eligibility Rules

Postby BobKilner » Thu Jan 26, 2017 2:16 pm

I was going to reply with almost exactly what Tom said about the homeschool thing -- since I coach baseball, we've encountered this a couple times, with homeschool kids playing for us. That said, they can participate in the district in which they reside. I'm not sure how other states' rules work.

I can't speak for the committee, but its not really something we've had to deal with or that I can remember them having to deal with. If it somehow comes up as something we feel we need to legislate somehow, then I'm sure we will. But until then, I don't think its really an issue.

And sorry Tom, I am in a hurry and couldn't read your novel-esque posts as of 2:15.
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Re: RE: OAC Regionals/States Eligibility Rules

Postby csa2125 » Mon Jan 30, 2017 11:42 pm

Seeing that a number of people would like to change the eligibility rules in some way, when will OAC address this? Can some decision be made on this before Regionals and State, which are still quite a ways off, so those who are affected this year can play those tournaments if the decision is made in their favor?
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Re: RE: OAC Regionals/States Eligibility Rules

Postby rdfromsolon » Tue Jan 31, 2017 12:25 am

Just a few of my thoughts on this subject:

I personally think that OAC eligibility should closely match the eligibility rules of other quizbowl organizations, like NAQT. From NAQT's high school eligibility page:

E. Affiliation
1.Students may only compete at high school tournaments for schools with which they have an affiliation.
2.A player automatically establishes an affiliation with a school for a given competition year by enrolling in an academic term the majority of whose days fall within that competition year.
...
6.A player with affiliations at multiple schools may compete for all such schools during the competition year, but may only represent a single school at any given tournament.

G. Competing at Multiple Levels
1.If a player has affiliations with institutions at different educational levels (middle school, high school, community college, college, etc.), he or she may compete for all such institutions up to and including attending multiple national championships.


Based on these criteria, the middle school and college eligibility are distinct issues. High schoolers who are dual-enrolled in a college or community college are allowed to play in both high school or college competitions for their high school team and college events for their college teams. Middle schoolers can only compete with high school teams if they are enrolled in that high school. However, I think the committee should consider allowing middle school only teams to compete at OAC Regionals.

Also, I agree with Clark that it is possible to resolve this issue in the 3 months before OAC Regionals, especially since online voting is now allowed.
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Re: RE: OAC Regionals/States Eligibility Rules

Postby Get Lynned » Tue Jan 31, 2017 12:26 am

csa2125 wrote:Can some decision be made on this before Regionals and State, which are still quite a ways off, so those who are affected this year can play those tournaments if the decision is made in their favor?

Why? So you don't have to own to a consequence of the choice you consciously made to play for Ohio State when it was clearly expressed, in the rules and I am pretty sure to you personally, that doing so results in a forfeiture of your OAC Regionals and States eligibility for that academic year?

You can play OAC regionals and states next year. You made your bed - lie in it.


also; fyi - I don't know if you know this or not, but according to NAQT if you're looking to play for an NAQT state title this season then don't play SCT for Ohio State this weekend. NAQT wrote a few days ago that the SCT set and the set used for NAQT states are too similar.
Last edited by Get Lynned on Tue Jan 31, 2017 11:41 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: RE: OAC Regionals/States Eligibility Rules

Postby Djones » Tue Jan 31, 2017 7:29 am

The committee addressed this and the middle school issue earlier this year with a unanimous vote. I don't see us addressing it again during this competition season.
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Re: RE: OAC Regionals/States Eligibility Rules

Postby gbdriver80 » Tue Jan 31, 2017 10:51 am

Djones wrote:The committee addressed this and the middle school issue earlier this year with a unanimous vote. I don't see us addressing it again during this competition season.


Just for clarity's sake to David's point, we discussed the middle school issue earlier this year but did not vote on anything.

And as a general rule, no changes are going to be made to eligibility or game play rules during the competition season; it would be highly unprofessional of any organization to do such a thing. That being said, the issue will be placed on the agenda for the meeting this summer so that discussion may take place then.
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Re: RE: OAC Regionals/States Eligibility Rules

Postby csa2125 » Fri Feb 03, 2017 6:54 pm

I would believe it to be much more professional to address issues which you can easily solve within a three-month time frame without damaging your program in any way; nor is it professional to evade changing a policy, which has been proven here and elsewhere to be entirely unnecessary and even counter to your committee's stated goals, merely to avoid controversy within your organization over the fact that OAC might once have made a mistake and might once have to backtrack.

I haven't seen anyone here provide any argument as to how I or any others gain an unfair advantage by playing in both the high school and college circuits--neither Texas nor Illinois employ such eligibility restrictions. All I have gotten is that the rule has been here forever so it's probably fine (which it has been proven to be not), or that it would be "unprofessional" to change anything midseason, which it would not: that would actually be responsible, and many quiz bowl organizations, including very recently NAQT, have made changes of this magnitude mid-season.

Nor has anyone explained how middle schoolers playing high school quiz bowl have an unfair advantage; the only "argument" has been about the possibility that John Eighthgrader can "shop" for either the Ruraltown North or Ruraltown South high school teams, but if John Eighthgrader is already good enough that his decision to play for South rather than North somehow game-changing (which it can be, but usually isn't, since high schoolers have four more years experience), he's probably still a force to be reckoned with the North team; nor has anyone address how this is any different than me moving to Jerome next year and playing for them when I live in the Scioto area. There is also the idea that somehow playing a year of OAC in-person is vastly different than practicing on the same questions with teams of similar skill to those at Regs and States, which isn't as much an argument as regurgitant. Perhaps if there were an OAC States tournament for middle schoolers, this would not be a problem, and if this existed, there would be more middle schoolers interested in playing OAC in the first place, but that isn't something I can do anything about.
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Re: RE: OAC Regionals/States Eligibility Rules

Postby BobKilner » Mon Feb 06, 2017 11:42 am

The OAC committee members will no longer be replying to this thread. Everyone is welcome to attend our summer meeting (date TBA) at which time the above matters can be discussed. This thread is now locked.
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