or Everything You Didn't Know About I.E. Nationals (and ought to know for History's sake...)
by Dr. Chris Reynolds, NFA Executive Secretary
Webmaster's Note: This document was originally printed as part of the 1990 Tournament Booklet, Twenty Years of Champions: The Individual Events National Championship Tournament, 1971-1990 (The National Forensic Association, Mankato State University). It is reprinted with the kind permission of Dr. Reynolds.
I have found myself around NFA--as a competitor, judge, and officer of the Association--for a long time (but that is another story). This story is about what I have learned about I.E. Nationals that I did not know as a competitor or judge. I wish I had known then what I understand now, because I would have better appreciated the marvelous phenomenon that NFA has become for its members. I think I also would have appreciated the thought and work that underlies the workings of the tournament and the fair and high quality competition that the tournament inherently encourages. I.E. Nationals is full of integrity because many people have put two decades of work into making hard decisions, adding endless numbers, and being open to change. So you too may appreciate the "beast" of I.E. Nationals more fully, I will attempt to explain the tournament by discussing what it takes to create and run I.E. Nationals each year. What follows is your "average" NFA, warts and all.
Computerization has made the life of an NFA Executive Secretary much easier, but much has never changed (and probably never will). Before entries arrive by Certified Mail, Return Receipt Requested--of course--I verify the results of over 90 tournaments. My phone begins ringing about February 15, and keeps ringing until the fourth Thursday in April. When a school entry arrives, it is assigned a number (001, 002, etc.) in the order it is received. I data process into the computer the slots entered, judges attending, fees owed, special exceptions, and other useful information. The computer 1) checks to see that the slots entered have qualified for nationals; 2) computes the fees owed; 3) sorts Dramatic Duo and Pentathlon entries into separate data base files; 4) sorts and counts Pentathlon slots; and 5) prints out various confirmation and verification information that I send back to each entered school.
Seven days before I.E. Nationals begins, the computer does some important work. Our IBM P/S 2, Model 50z runs a series of programs that marks and counts every single slot entry, each school entry, judges, pentathlon slots and duo slots. The computer then numbers each slot in each of the nine events (1000=Extemp to 9000=Dramatic Duo, beginning for each event at a randomly chosen entry number). This task was one of the most arduous and error prone parts of preparation B.C.--before computer. The computer can also re-number any event on command at any time before we begin scheduling, so we always have a completely accurate account of how many slots are entered. I then print out a series of lists that are essential to scheduling the tournament: master lists of schools (alphabetically and by entry number), master lists of entries in each event (sorted for each event by a school's entry size), lists of each school's entries and the numbers assigned to those students (sorted by name and event).
The Friday before I.E. Nationals begin is the day that I go to the host school. Three other people will join me by noon, and we begin to schedule the tournament. The NFA scheduling method is well documented in places like the National Forensic Journal, so I need not explain it here. Suffice it to say that our schematic plot is developed specifically to guarantee student anonymity in schedule plotting, maximize the opportunity for any student to have a fair chance of meeting any other student entered in an event (as long as it is not a student from his/her own school), and to maximize rotation of all slots throughout the four rounds of preliminary competition. We plot the first round by hand, then data process the first round into the computer. A program developed by Ed and Patricia Harris then rotates the schematic for rounds II, III, and IV. Generating round I and "cloning" that round for II, III, and IV took almost two days in the years B.C.; computerization has cut that process down by over a day!
We begin scheduling judges late Saturday morning. This task is still performed by hand and probably will be for a few years to come. Assigning judges takes teams of two people, working two to three hour shifts, through Monday morning to complete! The conditions of judge assignment include 1) number of rounds a judge is obligated--a full commitment is 14 of the 16 preliminary rounds; 2) no judge may judge a contestant from her/his own school; 3) events a judge prefers to adjudicate; and 4) no judge may critique a round with another that she/he has been paired with in a previous round. Frankly, this becomes one tough task by Round IV, and we spend much time cross checking rounds to make sure that judges are not seeing students they have already heard before in a particular event, like Prose Interpretation!
The remainder of Monday and Tuesday is spent preparing the tournament schedule for the printer, taking care of changes in the contestant and judging schedules due to drops, and dealing with all sorts of anticipated and unanticipated emergencies. On Wednesday we print out receipts, complete judge assignment sheets for all regular and hired judges, make sure that registration materials are in order, and take care of more drops of entries and judges. By Wednesday evening we have completed a number of tasks:
We have scheduled an "average" of:
- 312 contestants in Prose
- 259 contestants in Poetry
- 251 contestants in Impromptu
- 200 contestants in Informative
- 171 contestants in Persuasion
- 169 entries in Dramatic Duo
- 158 contestants in Extemp
- 149 contestants in After Dinner
- 109 contestants in Rhetorical Criticism
- 1204 sections of competition
- 54 sections of Prose to 19 sections of Rhetorical Criticism
- 2408 judges to critique rounds
We have generated:
- 175 Impromptu topics
- 126 Extemp questions
- 40 tournament schematic sheets
- 48,000 sheets after duplication
- 172 results sheets on which to tabulate 21,672 sheets after duplication
- 20,000 individual ballots sorted into packs of 6
We see the average "I.E. Nationals" as:
- 1830 slots entered
- 126 schools in attendance
- 32 states represented in the entry
- 115 students entered in Pentathlon
- 285 judges critiquing at least one round
- 1078 students attending the tournament
Now, the fun part begins!
We begin tabulation of tournament results on Thursday, after the first round of ballots are returned to the desk. The tabulation crew works in two shifts, day and night. Fourteen people comprise the tournament operation crew, including desk workers, Extemp Draw manager, and tabbers. The NFA Constitution and By-laws provides the procedures for tabulating results, advancement to elimination rounds, and the awarding and tabulating of sweepstakes points. By 5:30 p.m. on Monday, the tabulation crew will have:
- recorded 14,448 rank/rating sets from preliminary rounds
- recorded 1,890 rank/rating sets from elimination rounds
- awarded 14,448 sweepstakes points in preliminary rounds:
- 7,227 points for 1sts
- 4,816 points for 2nds
- 2,408 points for 3rds
- awarded 1,377 sweepstakes points for elimination rounds
- awarded 290 trophies to quarterfinalists, semifinalists, finalists, pentathlon contestants and sweepstakes winners
- made at least 12,497 mathematical calculations!
Given the amount of recording and calculating that we do and the tabulation errors that I have been able to document over the last 20 years, there is an 0.033% chance that the tabulation crew will make a recording or mathematical error that effects the outcome of awards in any manner in a given year. That figure translates into the potential for three recording, transcription, and/or addition errors in a given year. I hope that says much for the care and accuracy of the tournament tabulation crew. We have been fortunate in that error potential has not been realized through the vast majority of NFA history. By the time the tournament ends on Monday evening, we will have used 89,672 pieces of paper to conduct competition and record its outcome. Many forests have given their all to NFA, too. So, to assure that NFA I.E. Nationals is alive and kicking for another 20 years, save and recycle your ballots and results--and plant a few trees...