Conference "A" and "AA" Tournament Two Reminders and Announcements

Dear Conference “A” and Conference “AA” Coaches,

We look forward to this weekend’s Tournament Two Friday and Saturday.

A few brief reminders:

Confirm with students and judges and advise of any changes ASAP. Changes you know of should come directly (ASAP) to the tournament directors as follows:

For Conference “A” at Harlan please call/text tournament director Desiree Weber with all changes for Friday and on Saturday morning as soon as you’re aware of them after 10 am:

3 1 2 – 6 1 8 – 8 1 0 9

For Conference “AA” at Perspectives Tech, please call/text David Song with all changes for Friday and on Saturday morning as soon as you’re aware of them:

8 4 7 – 9 5 1 – 9 6 6 2

Second, please note locations of the tournaments for this weekend:

Conference “A”
Harlan HS
9652 S. Michigan

Conference “AA”
Perspectives Tech HS
8131 S. May
(Please drop off and arrive at the main entrance on May, in the middle of the school)

Third, please note T2 schedule.

* All schools should plan to arrive by around 3:45 pm on Friday and around 7:45 am on Saturday, where we start serving breakfast. Our dedicated, wonderful judge table staff will begin calling you not long after that time if you have not yet arrived at the tournament. We have your cell phone numbers and will use them to ensure we’re on-time.

* As soon as you are ready to leave your school and get on the bus Friday afternoon and Saturday morning, please call/text any changes as soon as you know them. Showing up to the tournament without communicating a changed registration in a timely fashion will mean your students are left off the pairing and forfeited. Changes must be called/texted in by 4 pm at the latest on Friday, but we’d strongly suggest informing of changes by 3:30 pm or 3:45, or earlier. On Saturday, changes must be called/texted in by 7:50 am, but text/call changes before you get on the bus and depart in the morning.

* Our tournaments run on-time. We respect your time and value the contribution you make to the experience of students from your school and all the others that are a part of the league, it is a professional expectation that coaches ensure their students and judges arrive on time and are ready to debate at scheduled times. Those who are late for debates or have unannounced changes are asking for exceptions that would delay the tournament for everyone else’s students, which we can’t allow.

* Forfeits will occur 15 minutes after the start of each announced round. For Round 1 Friday afternoon, 5:15 pm is the forfeit time. For Round 3 on Saturday morning, 8:45 am is the forfeit time. Please make sure you plan enough travel time and check with your judges in the morning as well – having students lose their first debate due to tardiness is not the way to start a day of competition with elimination rounds in the balance.

* All schools will stay until departure at 6 pm following awards on Saturday – no school leaves before first departure at our tournaments and your students are certainly in contention for awards and don’t want to miss the excitement of the awards ceremony.

* All judges are obligated through quarterfinals. We appreciate judges, even relatively inexperienced ones, being willing and ready to judge debates to enable students to compete in preliminary debates.

* Schools should plan to have one judge/coach available to stay with students in the event they debate in semifinals and finals and arrange alternate transportation other than the bus that leaves at first departure. One judge from each school is obligated a round past its elimination, meaning teams debating in quarterfinals are obligated to have one judge in semifinals and teams in semifinals are obligated to have one judge in finals.

We look forward to great competition. Please update tournament directors directly with registration changes and feel free to ask David any general questions by e-mail.