The Ohio Quizbowl Forum

I am proud to announce today that for the first time, students from around Ohio will be able to compete at regional and state-level tryouts to represent the Buckeye State at the National All-Star Academic Tournament (NASAT), written by High School Academic Pyramid Questions and to be held at the University of Kentucky over the weekend of June 23-25.

Every high school in Ohio is invited to send its 3 best competitors -- one each in literature, sciences, and history -- to a regional tryout site. (Each competitor can only play one tryout site. Sorry.) The sites and dates are...

May 8, Chillicothe High School
May 10, Sylvania Northview High School
May 11, The Miami Valley School
May 15, Olmsted Falls High School
May 16, Cloverleaf High School
May 17, Walnut Hills High School
May 18, Boardman High School

Each site will have a check-in/registration period starting at 4:30 PM. The tryout activities will begin at 5. The ending time will vary depending on how many students tryout at each site, but my goal is to be done by 7. The Miami Valley School site will start 30 minutes later (registration at 5, tryout activities beginning at 5:30).

Students that perform well enough to warrant a call-back will be invited to the final, statewide tryout on Sunday, May 21 in the Columbus area. Pending a confirmation on room reservations, I intend to have this final session at The Ohio State University. Any student that has been named to an Ohio NASAT team before, either as a player or an alternate, does not need to attend a regional site. For those students that this exemption applies to, fill out the registration form as you normally would; I'll check for your name against previous NASAT rosters and pencil you in for the final tryout.

The fee per student is $25. If a coach from the school volunteers to read, a $5 discount per player will be applied. If a coach or player brings the school's buzzer system, so long as it is fully functional and can accommodate 8 players minimum, a $5 discount will apply for 1 player only. Fees are used to cover the cost of the questions as well as personal costs incurred to travel to and host these events. For question security reasons, I am not revealing the name(s) of the set(s), but I have the assurance of the writer(s)/editor(s) that they have not been heard or seen in Ohio and has/have not been posted to any packet archives.

Payment _must_ be made prior to the tryout date or at the check-in/registration on site. Any player at a specific site that has not paid by 5 PM (or 5:30 at Miami Valley) will not be permitted to participate.

For clarification, a school can choose to send fewer than 3 students, but the 3 student maximum cannot be exceeded. A school that has a player that can claim an exemption to the final tryout can still send 3 to the regional tryout, though.

To register, please use the Google form linked here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=10i6p_ ... cz8RZCTw1c

If you have any questions, please contact me by replying to this post or at allohio2017tryouts at gmail dot com.

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Greg Bossick, formerly Persona Non Grata
Mogadore '98, Youngstown State '02
Director of the Mahoning, Ashtabula, Portage, and Toledo Area Quizbowl Leagues

Thank you for this information, but I am confused about a few things:

Why are these all on different dates? Wouldn't hosting on the same date minimize question discussion?

Why are some during the week? (not everybody ONLY does quiz bowl)

Why 4:30? (I personally wouldn't be able to make any of these after school because of the distance)

Why is the final tryout on the 21st? (I'm not sure about other schools, but that is my schools graduation weekend

Why is there a three student cap? (Copley could easily send four people that compete well)

Why is it specifically "one each in literature, sciences, and history" when NASAT is itself heavy in arts and RMP?

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Hunter Wotruba
Fisher Catholic 2013-2017
Miami University 2017-2021

NEVER have I seen a NASAT tryout run like this. This seems to disenfranchise top tier competitors from attending. Why not just host tryouts on a Saturday in a central location?? And why are you charging students to attend??

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Ben Anthony
Harrison '17

Glad to hear a definitive update on the NASAT team. However, there are some issues with this tryout procedure that I think should be addressed:

I don't think it is a good idea to have people drive over 7 hours to attend these tryouts. And since there are 7 tryout locations, I highly doubt that many of the locations will have more than ~5 people. I think online tryouts are much more convenient for everyone involved.


I don't think it makes sense to limit the number of people from a certain school that can tryout. (I do agree that the final NASAT team should have some diversity (i.e. at least 2-3 schools represented).)


This is a pretty ridiculous fee to pay for tryouts, when they are only 1.5 hours long. Also, we received the MYSTERIUM questions we used for tryouts for free last year. Generally, editors will allow you to use their questions for free as long as you are not charging players.


This doesn't really make sense to me either. EVERY tournament I have ever played has announced the question set before the tournament. In addition, it would probably be a good idea to use a regular College or regular College minus difficulty set, and I don't believe that there are any such sets still available this year.


This is also not a very good date to have a large tryout. There tends to be graduation, prom, and other activities during this time period. Personally, I would not have been able to make this date due to Science Olympiad nationals.

Below are a few other ideas we brainstormed last year when determinig how NASAT tryouts would be handled:
1. Online tryouts
2. Host regional tryouts at the OAC Regionals sites (during lunch or after the tournament) and a final tryout at OAC States
3. Have just one central tryout at OAC States (or another date)
4. Have a panel of coaches pick the team

(On a side note, HSAPQ now allows multiple teams from the same state to compete.)

Nevertheless, I think Ohio can have a very solid team this year. Good luck to the team at NASAT!

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Rohin Devanathan
Solon High School '16
UC Berkeley '20

Hunter: The different dates are what were agreed to by the various hosts. Saturdays are fully booked in May -- OAC Regionals, OAC State, MSNCT, Northmont's ICT mirror, and HSNCT. I scheduled the final date for Sunday, 5/21 so as not to conflict with Northmont's event and allow one month's lead time prior to NASAT itself. I chose 4:30 check-in, 5:00 PM start because it is a weeknight and doing a 7 PM start/9 or 9:30 finish is not feasible for the hosts or myself. I set a 3 student cap (with the exception of those schools that have put a person onto a NASAT team before) so that one school would be very unlikely to get the entire starting lineup of a team; doing that goes against the spirit of the event, in my opinion. There will be proportional RMP/Fine Arts/Geo-CE-SocSci questions in the tryout, but the primary (4/4) categories are Lit, Sci, and History.

Ben: See the point about Saturdays above. As for charging, I have to pay for the questions, gas to get me to all of the sites, child care (you may not know this about me, but I have a 2 year old; I've taken her to events before, but it's sub-optimal trying to read with a toddler in tow), and my time has to be valued at something non-zero. Beyond that, I'm hoping that there will be enough coming in from the tryouts to cover the entry fees for (hopefully) two teams going to Kentucky, transportation to and from Lexington, and perhaps enough to cover hotels when we're there.

Rohin: I think I addressed everything you posted in previous comments aside from the fact that the editor(s) of the set(s) want to be paid his/her/their mirror fees, which is reasonable and something that I cannot do out of my own pocket. Online tryouts such as last year's add a level of "who has the best internet connection/least lag time" to the process, which I don't believe is right. I'm choosing a different way, based on feedback I received and my own philosophy of how I believe something like this should be done. On a larger note, I'm hoping that by allowing more areas of the state to host a tryout, it will allow more students to experience questions at this level. If you're right and there's only 5ish students per site, then I will accept that and move on. It's been difficult to get teams in some corners of the state (I'm thinking primarily of Cincinnati, here) to go to a Saturday event...but it may not be as difficult of a stretch for them to go on a weeknight as an individual rather than as part of their team.

I've sent over 100 emails today to all kinds of people and programs -- OAC qualifiers, SSNCT qualifiers, league directors in parts of the state that have probably never heard of Panasonic let alone NASAT, teams in my leagues that aren't going to either OAC or any NAQT postseason event. We'll see what happens.

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Greg Bossick, formerly Persona Non Grata
Mogadore '98, Youngstown State '02
Director of the Mahoning, Ashtabula, Portage, and Toledo Area Quizbowl Leagues

Not all of my concerns were addressed, and I would like to add a few points.

Many/most students probably have prior commitments on week nights, ESPECIALLY around 4:30. As it is, I already have some trouble with my commitments overlapping with each other (i.e student council, tennis, quiz team) and I am sure others are the same way. I know I am not the only one involved in athletics that would have a hard time making time for this.

Why is doing it during MSNCT not an option?

Last year there seemed to be no connectivity issues, so I would not even say that is a factor, and ANIME ran smoothly without there being a connection issue.

Why not, like Rohin suggested, run things after regionals? These are all being run (I would assume) by competent coaches/advisors that could easily run a small tryout if the packets were emailed to them, so you would not have to go to every location.

And if the locations were chosen because "[you are] hoping that by allowing more areas of the state to host a tryout, it will allow more students to experience questions at this level." then why not just use Skype (again no connectivity issues in any other instance)

Again I am not sure about other schools, but my graduation is the 21st, and my finals are pretty much at the same time as the preliminary tryouts. This would just not be feasible for me.

I hope our feedback helps.

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Hunter Wotruba
Fisher Catholic 2013-2017
Miami University 2017-2021

I agree with the concerns expressed by Hunter and others. I'm curious to see who will try out. I know Kara said that she is unwilling to pay to tryout (not to mention that the MVS date is on our valedictorian recognition night), as have two other top Ohio quizbowlers who emailed me today about this (though I will let them speak for themselves if or when they choose). I understand that you need to be compensated for work that you do, and I get that, but charging $25 for what could account to 90 minutes of getting your butt kicked by Clark or Hari or Hunter or whoever tries out hardly seems worth it to me.

Also, why no fine arts specialists. Having coached this team several times and having been there for probably half of these events, fine arts is a HUGE portion of the canon. If Kara were to try out, she couldn't beat Nour at lit, or others at the other subjects, but may be the best fine arts player in the state. Under these tryout qualifications, there is no chance she would make the team, deserving or not.

I do hope this venture succeeds, but given the concerns expressed on (and off) the boards, you might want to reconsider some of the parameters.

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David Jones
Coach, Northmont High School

I'm just glad someone (Greg) is doing this.

In general, I think the framework is a huge improvement over the last time in-person tryouts were held, but I think there are a few things that would require correction for next year if you were to be in charge of NASAT.
Criticism
I'm somewhat miffed by the location of sites. With the details and everything being patched up evidently in late March and early April, I acknowledge this was probably the best sites arrangement possible. However, I find concern with the general location of the sites. There is a site for Cincinnati, but not Columbus. I realize Chillicothe may be the intended site to serve Central Ohio, but it's a good hour and a half drive from a good chunk of the quizbowl active schools. This is not to suggest Chillicothe and the areas to its south and east do not deserve a nearby try-out site; they most certainly do. However, I will speculate that a drive to Chillicothe from Dublin, or Powell, or Bexley on a weeknight during the thick of AP Exams is going to be a tough sell to the student and an even tougher sell to the parents. Again, nothing wrong for Chillicothe to host for Southern OH schools, but it may be improbable for Central OH schools.

I'm not necessarily of the opinion "certain regions of the state should fork over their try-out locations" (as it may come off in my sentiment on Cincinnati), but if the resources only allow for seven sites and if a decent chunk of the quizbowl playing circuit is effectively eliminated from attending tryouts due to geographic impracticality, then perhaps in the future the selection of sites and the criteria behind their selection should be revisited. Greg, if you were to do this next year, would you consider adding a site to Columbus?

$25 may be cost prohibitive to students.

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Thomas Moore
William V. Fisher Catholic '14
Ohio Wesleyan '18

The two main problems for me are location and time:

Location:
I find it hard to believe that no school other than MVS in the Dayton area is willing to host a NASAT tryout. If I could not make that date, then I would have to drive 1.5+ hrs just to make another tryout, and that's somewhat ridiculous. This location problem would simply be solved if all of the tryouts happened on date (Sundays?) or if Skype was used. As having participated in many Skype competitions before, I can say that there's usually never lag issues.

Time:
Finding time to go to tryouts during weekdays is extremely painful, especially if you're participating in spring sports (I know of three) and you're stuck at school until 7:00. Also, most of the tryout dates are scheduled during AP testing week, and personally I would not want to stress myself out over tryouts and APs at the same time.

I would love to be able to participate in NASAT, but unfortunately the times and locations are very inconvenient for me and others in Central Ohio.

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Hari Parameswaran
Beavercreek High School 2019

I'm a little late to the party, but I'd like reinforce the criticisms above by noting that not only are the cost, times, and locations prohibitive, but the idea that you have to be some specialist in the big three areas or you have no chance is a little ridiculous.

Also, there's a reason weekday tournaments don't exist and I believe everyone above me has enumerated those reasons well enough for me to not go through them. I'm ok with running these tryouts during OAC regionals.

While I agree that playing face to face is ideal, this proposed idea is incredibly flawed if it's only purpose is to answer the question "How can we gather students together to see who is most deserving of a spot on the NASAT team?". I feel like the general criticisms from numerous people across different regions of the state is enough to warrant coming up with a different tryout system. If this system is implemented, then I definitely will not pay $25 just to participate in some match at OSU.

edit: missing word

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Nour Hijazi
Sidney '17

I'll try to address things as best I can post by post.

Hunter (2nd post): I'm not sure what I missed, but I've outlined -- as best I can -- why I went with weeknight dates. MSNCT (5/12) doesn't work for two reasons: I'm staffing it (I was supposed to be taking a team, but funding was nonexistent) and you might be playing OAC State that day. Even if I weren't staffing MSNCT, it would be a bit odd/rude/anticlimatic, in my opinion, to come and crash the party with a tryout. It would be, I feel, disrespectful to Alex, who will already have enough to do that day. I'll extend that argument to each of the Regional hosts -- your school being one of them. Even in the West Central, which has the reader corps to get through the entire tournament before other regions are on a lunch break, I think it would be presumptuous to ask them "hey, I know you just did an 8/9 round event, but how about 4/5 more"?

We are going to have to agree to disagree about the online portion. Even if connectivity wasn't an issue for the players, I can't guarantee that it wouldn't be an issue for me, even if I were a proponent of such a thing. I'm not going to sit here and say that I will have a flawless connection when there are 4 other people in my house using multiple devices on a part of the ATT network that isn't operating at peak capacity in this part of the 614 anyway. There's nothing wrong with practicing online, or having games that don't amount to much (I used to run, for some other organization, the Online Skype Practice League, back when I was still in that organization's employ). For something like this, I feel brick, mortar, and buzzers are best.

I didn't realize the 21st was FC's graduation. I apologize for that. Will you be at Northmont the day before?

David: There are 12 spots, minimum. You and I have both been to NASAT before and I hope you know that I take fine arts seriously. There's as much room for a fine arts specialist as there is for an RMP specialist or someone who can corner Geo/current events/social science. There will be rounds for those. I've already put most of them together. Kara is exempt from the regional tryout because she was named to the 2015 team, so there's that.

[While I'm on that topic, let me know if I've missed anyone: Hunter, Nour, Tommy from Copley, Kara, Vincent from Sylvania Southview (alternate last year), and Clark are the names I have as current students who were at least named to a NASAT team previously.]

Tom: taking your points in backward order so that I can touch on something that's been brought up by others, both here and in other conversations. I want to make it very clear that the $25 price point, before discounts, is not about the money. I've been told point-blank that I'm into this more for the money than the game. That is crap. Unless you did my taxes this year, you don't know what's on my Schedule C. Maybe I could have argued harder for a reduction or a waiver of mirror fees; that hurts question writers. Maybe I could ask my in-laws to babysit for almost 2 weeks for free; that's unfair on them. Or maybe I can drop this whole thing. I did the work securing questions, checking with Jacob at HSAPQ to make sure no one else had expressed interest so as not to step on anyone's toes, lined up each of the sites in short order because I love quizbowl in Ohio, served it in various capacities for 15+ years, and felt called to do something when a member of this community asked me to do something. I feel the price is fair for the questions that are being used and the work that I have already done and will do, assuming there's enough interest. If circumstances were different and I could eat the costs, I would. I can't. I can't ask my family to take that L.

If there's a site on the north side of 70 that wants to host on May 9, I'm willing to go there. I was looking at one in the Mansfield area, but they didn't get back to me.

About Cincinnati...there are _so many teams_ down there. Just about everyone on this forum that has run a tournament has tried, in vain, to crack that market. If Ed Sunderhaus gets 1 player from each of the schools under his umbrella to go to Walnut Hills, it might be the biggest pyramidal event the 513 has ever seen. I think that's part of what's lost here. This isn't just a tryout for elite players in Ohio. It's an outreach event.

Thank you, Tom, for saying you're glad I'm doing this. I'm glad somebody is, and maybe you're not the only one, but I'm happy you said it. Feel free to come celebrate my birthday in Chillicothe if you want.

Hari: I asked Tippecanoe first. Joe didn't want to commit and then have to back out, so he passed. I respect that. Tyler offered. I accepted. I've addressed the internet concern above. Sundays are an option of last resort. I've scheduled the Ohio State(?) one on a Sunday so as not to conflict with an already scheduled event at Northmont the day prior. 5/14 is MSNCT Sunday, 5/28 is HSNCT Sunday. 5/7, I'm going to be getting ready for Chillicothe.

I can respect the spring sports conflicts (my 7th grader runs track). Given the other constraints, particularly my own schedule, this was the best-fit option.

Nour: as mentioned previously, you don't have to pay. You're on an exemption to the statewide. You would benefit, hopefully, from the others who would pay to tryout. You might be ok with it running during Regionals, but I refer you back to my comments to Hunter regarding such. Weekday tournaments do exist; before my youngest was born, I ran some, and I still help out at others when I can. They might not be events that you would play, but that doesn't mean they aren't there. I'll refer you to my comments toward David regarding the idea that I'm giving no consideration to areas outside the big 3.

In any case, the emails have been sent. Now we'll wait and see what the responses are. If there's not enough response to warrant doing these tryouts, I'll step aside and if someone else wants to select a side and take it to UK, fair enough...but I'm not giving up yet.

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Greg Bossick, formerly Persona Non Grata
Mogadore '98, Youngstown State '02
Director of the Mahoning, Ashtabula, Portage, and Toledo Area Quizbowl Leagues

Thanks for clarifying, Greg.


Just a sidebar, to bring some levity to this discussion: Hunter, I'm reading at your Regional. Stevenson is going to straight up 'Lynn a fool' if they so much as to not have their shoes tied in her presence, or, in the case of her students, the wrong shade of green. I can only imagine what innocent thing I'll do that'll have my soul scorched for the next 10,000 years if her and Mike are asked to do this on what's already going to be a hysterical and hot day.


One additional thing to consider: if the final tryout is held on a Sunday at Ohio State, could there be some determination as to when it would start or end? Hunter's graduation is at 2pm, which means he'd probably have to be all tailored and at F.C. by 1pm. Could the final tryout begin at a time such as 9am and finalize by 11:30am or 12pm, or could it start at say 5pm and end at 7pm? I realize this is 'me advocating for the interests of someone I went to school with', and I recognize this bias, but my guess is other high school graduations that might also be happening on the 21st are going to start at 1pm or 2pm. Are there any seniors out there on this board (or coaches), reading, that can inform as to what date their graduations are and what time their respective ceremonies are expected to start and end by? This may be of help to Greg in determining the 'best possible time.' Also, could the final tryout and its time/date be determined as soon as the final round of tryout participants is established? I realize that may be impossible, given the apparent complexity and stress behind room reservations, but I'm hoping that some consideration respective to the participants' schedules (however much as possible and allowable) can be heeded in making the 'final answer' as to when final tryouts are taking place. (I realize this is also contingent on what Greg is able to do.)

/ / / / / / / / / / / / /

I've been an advocate for in-person tryouts for a while. For several reasons, I find 'interpersonal' to be preferable to 'internet' when it comes to conducting the tryouts. It seems that Greg's system may be the only viable way of conducting tryouts at this stage in the game, so hopefully this thread fosters some nuance and suggestions of ways to make this system 'work better.'

(By the way, Ben: are you from Harrison High School in SW Ohio or William Henry Harrison in Indiana? Just curious!)

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Thomas Moore
William V. Fisher Catholic '14
Ohio Wesleyan '18

Instead of having the regional tryouts, could we just have a full-day tryout on a Sunday (other than May 21st)? I'd assume that the group who would go to regional sites would be planning to go to finals anyway, and probably would like something longer than ~3 hours if they have to drive ~3 hours to get there themselves. The preliminary rounds could be by region still, if necessary.
So, tryouts could be roughly equivalent to a full-day solo tournament--for which I would be fine with paying $25--and everyone will get more than two or three rounds to prove how much they know, which would ensure we'd get the strongest possible A and B teams. From what I've heard, were Ohio State to host, there would be no cost for the building, so that more of the proceeds could go to the NASAT team.

Also, I understand why you wouldn't want to reveal what set we're playing on--as long as it isn't on the archives or hasn't had an Ohio mirror. But can you reveal what difficulty these questions will be--high school regular, harder HS (like BHSAT or HFT), college minus, college, so forth? Further, there's a chance that some of us might have played some sets like BASQT out of state, and I've played all but about 2 college sets this year, though I'm fully aware that I am an outlier.

I'm not sure about trying out by specialty either--a lot of top players cover multiple areas, as Rohin did with history and science last year, and I do currently. The fourth person in any case will probably have to be someone who covers two or more of Fine Arts, RMP, and Geo/CE/Social Sciences (Personally, I'd group Phil and SS together more than SS with Geo/CE, or Phil with R+M, per how people tend to study, but that's besides the point). Last year's method of sitting everyone in a (Skype) room and taking the top X scorers after Y packets worked pretty well, except for our lack of a fourth scorer (last year, we didn't have someone who covered more than half the science canon effectively, or great Fine Arts--we might have some instance of Arrow's Paradox, though). This won't necessarily happen again, but if it does, and we end up without someone who's good on the "fourth player" stuff, then we could have a separate tryout-after-the-tryouts for that last spot.

Thanks for setting this up, anyhow, and thanks for being attentive to the concerns raised.

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Clark Smith
Scioto '18
OSU

Indiana, but we've been to a couple OH tournaments.

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Ben Anthony
Harrison '17

Word up. Hopefully you've had a pretty enjoyable time at the tournaments here. Welcome to the board! Always good to see new people!

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Thomas Moore
William V. Fisher Catholic '14
Ohio Wesleyan '18

The regional questions range from high school to college minus. The statewide is a college set. Part of what took so long was finding appropriate level questions that haven't been played by anyone in the state, particularly among the set of players that have been to NASAT before. In both cases, the rounds I've set have 20 tossups in the 4/4 categories and 15 in the 3/3 ones.

If the registrations don't come in, how would May 7 look for a single Sunday get together, and what start time would be best? May 14 will not work because I'm staffing MSNCT.

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Greg Bossick, formerly Persona Non Grata
Mogadore '98, Youngstown State '02
Director of the Mahoning, Ashtabula, Portage, and Toledo Area Quizbowl Leagues

He's been on the board for like 2 months and posted several times... geez Tom, pay attention.

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Bob Kilner
Chief Admin, ohioqbforum.com
Former Coach, Garfield Heights HS (2001-2008)
Coach, North High School (2015-)
Kent State '06 / Boise State '10

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Ben Anthony
Harrison '17

If we hold an event on May 7th, I can come.

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Clark Smith
Scioto '18
OSU

Is there a general consensus for holding a single tryout on the 7th?

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Hari Parameswaran
Beavercreek High School 2019

So basically...
I already qualify to skip the first round, can I opt out of the final as well considering it's on my graduation day? Just curious, still want to do NASAT, just can't make these tryouts. If people can't make tryouts, could a coaches panel decide the teams?

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Hunter Wotruba
Fisher Catholic 2013-2017
Miami University 2017-2021

I am cancelling all events I scheduled regarding NASAT try-outs and withdrawing myself from the process of selecting the team or arranging transportation/hotels. If someone else wants to organize it and would be interested in how to contact those players who did register for the regional events, you know how to contact me.

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Greg Bossick, formerly Persona Non Grata
Mogadore '98, Youngstown State '02
Director of the Mahoning, Ashtabula, Portage, and Toledo Area Quizbowl Leagues