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An Apology to Chris Ray

PostPosted: Fri Apr 13, 2018 12:03 pm
by Get Lynned
As many of you have probably read by now, I wrote several posts on the discussion thread regarding last Saturday's NAQT State tournament that were highly inflammatory, directly disparaging, cruel, unfair and frankly inappropriate toward Chris Ray. Not only were the content of my attacks not appropriate for the public forum, but they were attacks that Chris did not deserve to be subjected to regardless of the venue or medium in which they were expressed (which is to say, no matter if I would've e-mailed them to him or angrily left a voice-mail on his cell phone, they were frankly uncalled for.) I recognize that my comments were without a doubt hurtful to Chris, discouraging and insulting to him, and I recognize that by my public posting of said extreme harshness I was also writing content that was frankly humiliating, degrading and discrediting given that they were for everyone to see at Chris's expense.

I called into question whether or not Chris took seriously his duty as tournament director, accusing of him of approaching the NAQT State tournament, from a preparation standpoint, in a neglectful manner. I doubled down on said attack even further, directly calling into question his leadership while also needlessly hammering him for several event of the tournament that I do not believe he handled with complete carelessness, contrary to my earlier posts insinuating that he was being negligent in the processes that I described. Indeed, it was completely wrong of me to imply that Chris was being arrogant in the way in which he executed the tournament and it was not appropriate (nor true) for me to directly say that Chris was being arrogant at the expense of participating teams. I also called into question Chris's interest and regard for the Ohio high school quizbowl community, and shamefully and wrongly I employed a damaging, unfair and awful rhetoric that I used to further leverage my position – again, at Chris's expense. It was a position that was frankly wrong of me to espouse, as well as the fact that it was a position that was not correct. I also utilized my posture within our community to leverage said attacks, and I utilized said posturing to directly undermine Chris and his efforts as well as attack him on a personal basis.

I know that Chris cares a lot about not just quizbowl in general, but our game as well. Indeed, Chris and I had previously discussed in e-mail correspondence that there is a demand to be fulfilled for the growth and sustaining of what both of us recognize as a burgeoning Central Ohio circuit. Instead, I disregarded said testimony by Chris when I wrote the accusation that (paraphrase, because of differences in tense and syntax between then and now) “he hasn't cared about our game and likely does not” in the public forum and I disregarded said testimony because it simply did not fit my argument. This was wrong, very wrong and I recognize that I employed a baseless attack on Chris in this regard. Additionally, I know Chris to be a fair and reasonable person. I recognize that I discounted said fairness and rationality on his part (not just in his capacity as a tournament director or as a member of our community, but him as a person) and it was very inappropriate for me to do so. For that, I too apologize. I also recognize that as a consequence of what I said, including but not limited to the attacks that I wrote under the leverage that I did, stakeholders in our community may not be willing to put their trust into Chris for future events. I want to make a special point on this in particular, and explain that Chris is in fact someone I and everyone else can put our collective trust in as it relates to tournament direction.

I am incredibly sorry for the direct derision that I wrote toward Chris for everyone to see, and recognize also that said derision caused irreparable harm to Chris personally as well as his public image within our community but also, possibly, quizbowl in general (as I know that the thread in question generated a lot of outside attention, some of which I directly disseminated myself – such as linking the thread to my Facebook post in which I called Chris out directly).