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