T-Mac # 2

This is as much a story about an entire season as it is about one round. When I took the Assistant Director of Forensics job at Pacific University, I was pretty sure I knew what I was getting in to. In the northwest, Pacific is known for having really solid individual events and very streaky debaters. However, a year ago, as I was getting to know the debaters, I knew we had a lot of work ahead of us—more than I had anticipated.

With few exceptions, the debaters were really young. Half of them were freshman and the other half were sophomores--bitter, resentful sophomores. It’s been my experience that when someone loses for a long time, they tend to shift the blame away from themselves whenever possible, and that’s what my more experienced students were doing. Tiffanie and Jared, the two returning students, blamed evil speed, topicality and K’s for their many losses, claiming that if people debated the way parli was really intended, that they would do much better. But, like most people who make those arguments, they weren’t really mad at the structure of debate or the direction it was going, but just at the fact that they were losing and didn’t know how to fix it.

So, we started with the basics. I taught them the structure to arguments, the difference between offense and defense, how to answer a K, how to handle speed, anything and everything I knew they needed to know to do well. Still, it was slow going. We were working without a net—the season was in full swing, so in spite of my weekly meetings with each team, I often only discovered something needed improvement until their ballots told me so. At the first tournament, our teams were a lucky 3-3, 2-4 and 1-5, a trend that would continue for the rest of the semester.

Over winter break, although no one said it out loud, everyone was wondering the same thing—if we all wouldn’t be better off scrapping parli altogether and just focusing on individual events. Two of the six debaters had already done that, and the other four were probably considering if it wouldn’t be a better use of their time and resources to forget about debate and just cut more extemp articles every week. In the end, though, none of us were willing to walk away from debate—we loved it too much, and besides, there were small signs of progress that gave our teams hope.

As the spring term began, we had a team meeting and decided that instead of quitting, that we would try even harder to improve. I made them flashcards with the structure to positions, we had two weekly meetings and practiced in each, they researched cases and talked about the news together, and slowly, they started to get better. Jared and Tyler were an encouraging 3-3 at Point Loma and Willamette, the toughest tournaments we had been to all year, and when they went 5-1 at Oregon State, I knew they were peaking at the right time. Josh and Kyle were coming along, too. Going in to NPDA, I was pretty sure we wouldn’t embarrass ourselves, which was a big step up from where we were only a few months before.

After seven rounds, Josh and Kyle were 3-4 and out of the tournament, Jared and Tyler were 4-3 and had a chance to break, and I was going absolutely crazy. Coaching is much more nerve racking that debating for me, only because I ultimately have zero control over what happens in the round, and no matter how badly I want to help my kids, I’m ultimately powerless—it’s up to them.

When the topic came out, I got my shit together long enough to green light Josh and Kyle’s irony position. They just wanted to have fun, so I figured that letting them run a hilarious irony K was the least I could do for all their hard work. The rest of prep was as blur—walking to the round I was going to judge, I kept thinking of really good arguments that we should have prepped answers for, and Jared and Tyler had their phones off so I couldn’t warn them. By the time I had turned in my ballot, I was convinced they had lost.

What happened next was something I’ll never forget. I walked up stairs and saw Jared and Tyler standing next to each other, expressionless. I looked at them for a few seconds, and Jared smiled. I knew—they won, and were going to break. This team that didn’t know what a counterplan was six months before, that argued with me for weeks on end about why topicality is occasionally a good thing, that couldn’t structure a disad to save their life, this team—was going to break at a national tournament. Without saying a word, I gave them both a big, long hug. I was more proud of them than I’ve ever been of anyone, and it felt as good as anything I accomplished as a competitor.

Although we wouldn’t find out for a few hours, Josh and Kyle had won round eight too, ending up at a respectable 4-4. Despite dropping on a 2-1 in quads, I was still very happy to have coached Jared and Tyler.

However, with me leaving, Jared studying abroad and without any debate coach, next year promises to be a tough one for my debaters. I just hope that if they’re struggling at some point, they make the choice, like we all did over winter break, to work that much harder and never give up.

Tandy Hard #1

I cared what she thought, so when she dared me I knew I was in trouble. A dare is something you can’t take back or alter. Once it’s said you have two choices. Do the dare, and risk humiliation and bodily harm accomplishing the act; or don’t do the dare and be condemned to be a coward for the rest of your high school existence.

In rural Nebraska, there’s not much to do, so our dares tend to be a little more violent than the paltry “run around the circle clucking like a chicken.” Climbing water towers and running along the tops of the corrugated tin barn roofs were just a few of the more risky endeavors and dares. Jim had broken is collar bone falling off his parent’s roof once. That had ended the Truth or Dare games for a while, but not permanently.

Those were the physically risky dares, there were other psychologically risky dares. Peeping into her bedroom and seeing Mrs. Barnesdale naked was a truly harrowing experience. The worst was the termed the “Gauntlet”. Running through the side of town was a deep drainage ditch/culvert. Nettle trees intertwined around the banks forming an enclosed tunnel about five feet tall. Imagine the “Evil Trees” in the Wizard of Oz feed by corn fertilizer runoff, and you’d get a pretty good picture of what it looked like. The drainage trench would go under the gravel roads, and a big cement cylinder would serve as the bridge structure. Raccoons would make nests there, snakes would fall asleep, lying out on the dry cracked mud, left over from the last rain. Cicadas would nestle in the trees making an eerie er-er sound. Sometimes the sound would stop instantaneously, like the hundreds of insects had halted on cue, to something more powerful and sinister. At night the thorns and leaves blocked the stars, so the Gauntlet seemed like an ascent into the netherworld with no Virgil for a guide.

We played truth or dare to shake off our childhood. We proved to each other that we were strong and brave, wise and experienced. Risking and telling it all to show that we were adults, that we accepted the risk as a part of a so-called thrilling adult life.

She knew what she asked of me; she was getting back at me for Mike and I’s “extra-curricular activities” behind the football field. And I had no choice to accept. Not doing so would relegate me to the lowest of the low. I had to walk the Guantlet, without a flashlight.

As I entered in, climbing between a hole through the trees, Mike slipped me his tiny key chain flashlight. “Only for emergencies, they’ll see if you use it.” He whispered, as I awkwardly climbed down the dirt bank. I was greeted at the bottom with the small shower of soil I had displaced on my way down.

I walked gingerly through the Gauntlet, lightly placing my foot down until I was sure there wasn’t something that would yelp or hiss as I put my weight on it. I breathed very quietly as I walked, hoping that if I was silent as possible, the trees would ignore my presence. I was fighting back the monsters in my imagination, preventing them from coming out. And I was finally winning. As I paced through a cement bridge, my foot hit something light and hollow.

They wouldn’t see the light because I was enclosed, and I stopped (I felt at little bolder for making it this far). Using the flashlight, I could see some kid’s old cigar box. Inside was his baseball cards and a few green army guys, part of his childhood hidden away from the rest of the world.

But then, a Opossum saw my presence as he moved down the tunnel. He hissed, and I thought I saw foam. Not wanting Rabies, I started running and screaming pell-mell through the rest of the Gauntlet. I finally arrived to see my friends stricken and then grinning faces.

“What was it?” Mike asked.

“Some opossum, scared the shit out of me though” I said.

“We could tell, but what’s that?” She said, as the others glanced at the cigar box.

“Some kids’ stuff I found under the bridge.”

“I dare you to burn it.”

And I was suddenly tired of Truth or Dare.

TKO #2

TKO Question #2:

Write about a moment that you had a chance to choose whether you should fight or give up. What'd you choose? Why? What'd you go through when deciding what to do?

Please name your post your display name #2.

**

I will not do a vote/OOCast until there are at least five responses. Sorry guys but a vote seems kind of silly at this point.

Post is due in one week: Sunday midnight CNTL.

You may join the game at any time. If you would like me to send you an invite, comment in this post. Otherwise, if you are already signed up, happy writing!

At this point, I have sent invitations to all the OO4 contestants. If you missed it and need a new invite, contact me here or via email misshb AT gmail DOT com.

Alan #1

I cared what she thought, so when she dared me I knew I was in trouble. I waited until after services were over and the pastor was seeing everyone off, then I made my move. I swiped the communion wine. I had hung back, telling my mom I’d left something in the pew, then approached the alter, grabbed the wine and ran out the side of the rectory. I hid the wine in the garden with the intention of getting it later that night.

I had no intention of really doing it when I’d first suggested it. But then Jessica dared me. She told me I should grab it, then we’d drink it later that night. She was so cute. How could I resist? Besides, I thought that, with the help of the wine, I might finally get to kiss her.

So after hiding the wine, I went back out the front of the church, said goodbye to Pastor Dan and headed home with my mom.

After dinner, I snuck out my bedroom window and made my way back to the church. I found the wine right where I had left it. I felt so dirty as I grabbed the bottle and headed to Jessica’s house. But I also felt excited. Sure, we got to drink a little wine every weekend. But this was going to be more than usual. And this was going to be illicit. Stolen sacramental wine.

I arrived in Jessica’s backyard and sent her a quick text message. A few moments later, her curtains parted and I saw her. She was grinning. She opened the window and climbed down the trellis on the side of the house. I watched her ass sway back and forth in her tight jeans as she came down. I gripped the wine bottle more tightly.

She jumped the last three feet and grabbed my hand, dragging me along toward the silly playhouse that took up part of the back yard. She told me once that she’d had it since she was a kid, and her dad refused to take it down. So she’d go here when she wanted a little privacy.

I uncapped the bottle and offered her the first swig. She drank deeply, then passed the bottle to me. I drank as well, savoring the taste of her cherry lip balm on the lip, mixed with the more sour taste of the wine. My head was swimming already, although I’m pretty sure that it was my proximity to Jessica that caused it.

I felt her hand on my arm. I looked up from the bottle and there she was, leaning toward me. I set the bottle down and licked my lips. This was it. We were going to kiss. I leaned in toward her, approaching slowly. My lips were mere inches from hers, when suddenly there was a bright light illuminating the small space. I looked up into the angry eyes of Jessica’s father, bright red from embarrassment and the wine.

“Uh…hello, Pastor Dan….”