The first official tournament of the first PDA season (before the PDA became the IPDA) was hosted by Kansas City Kansas Community College. Don Black had actually volunteered to host a tournament in either in early fall or late spring and had been scheduled for early March. But the University of Mary-Hardin Baylor which was going to host the first tournament of the season had to cancel. So we decided to move the KCKCC tournament to the opening slot. Besides, the name "Kansas City Kick Off" was too much for the Executive Secretary to resist. This tournament was well out of the geographic range of most of the then current PDA schools, so the only two entries for this first tournament were KCKCC and St. Mary's. Don offered two divisions -- open and novice -- and with only two programs entered, had a total of 25 individuals participating in the two divisions. From an administrative perspective it was not an auspicious beginning. But from a pedagogical perspective it was just as grand as the UNCC and St. Mary's tournaments of the year before. A fine time was had by all and we went home glowing with optimism.
The second tournament of the season, and the real test for the new association was at Sam Houston State University. We had the bare minimum of entries and programs necessary to make the division sanction.12 And then we had a last minute drop. Jack and I were both competing and running the tabroom so we conferred. What we did not want to do was to start out by compromising our sanctioning requirements. Jack volunteered to plug the gap with his wife, Christine, who was driving down to help tab. She wouldn't be available until round two and I'm sure would have been delighted to serve as the plug (full sarcasm intended). But in the mean time my son Isaac who had just turned 7 years old was available and eager to play. Jack and I thought, 'well, why not?' Given our lack of eligibility requirements, there was no rule against it. And since we were all family back then, we figured, 'why not? indeed.' So we let him debate the first round and when Jack's wife arrived, Isaac didn't want to quit. That was just fine with Christine. So Isaac completed his six preliminary rounds and ended up going 2-4. Which says a lot about the value of ethos in persuasion.
We had survived our first tournament. And it was fun! The next tournament was an intramural/exhibition tournament at St. Mary's. It hadn't been posted on the official calendar and wasn't intended to be a sanctioned event. But I had opened it up to everyone figuring that it would allow other local programs to get in some practice. We ended up with a surprisingly large turnout including several high school debaters. In fact, we had enough programs and students entered that the tournament would have been a qualifier had I posted it ahead of time.
The Diamondback Classic that year boasted a field of 48 entries from 9 programs. It was the first PDA tournament to go to Octofinals. And during this tournament a set of discussions with Shane McMahon and Kevin Piwowarski at the University of Texas, Austin, led to their formation of the first entirely student run PDA program: 'Texas Public Debate.' With a little help from St. Mary's, they started competing at the very next tournament. This was the Lonestar Classic at San Jacinto College South. Tournament host Phil Fisher said this was the first tournament ever on their campus. It had Quarterfinal qualifying numbers but broke to Octofinals since the trophies had been ordered.
The following weekend Jack Rogers hosted his Patriot Games tournament again which also attracted a respectable field and went to Quarterfinals. Those of us at the tournament who had been part of the panel discussion the year before took stock in how much had changed and how much progress we had made. During this tournament Jack and I talked about the spring schedule. My original plan had been to host the Championship Tournament at St. Mary's. But since the UT-Tyler campus was available that weekend and Jack was willing to serve as host, we agreed that it was a much better venue for the growth of the association since it was more centrally located.
We felt the new association was off to a far better start than we had any right to expect. We had originally scheduled six tournaments for the fall of 1997 (hoping that at least 4 or 5 of them would make). Four of these had indeed made in a very traditional way. The Fall Intramural tournament at St. Mary's would have been a fifth if it had been posted, and the KCKCC tournament while far afield and very short of programs, had still garnered enough entries to meet the qualifying numbers. There was a general feeling of amazement and euphoria among the elders of the PDA.
Now before we continue into the spring semester, it's worth mentioning some bureaucratic trivia.
First, Jack Rogers and I were continuing to work on the PDA constitution, mostly by Email. We would discuss some issues in person when we met at tournaments, especially as we were able to observe the nature of this new event at the tournaments and consider in context how various constitutional wordings might affect the administration of public debate. But primarily we shot Email messages and draft proposals back and forth on an almost daily basis.13 By the end of the Fall semester, we had worked out 90% of the final document and were continuing to haggle over a very few tough issues. One of these was the question of the 3-person, self-perpetuating Executive Committee. Should it really be self-perpetuating or should we open these positions more or less to a democratic vote. I was holding out for the self-perpetuating board and I sensed that Jack, while still favoring democracy, was weakening.
Second, we still didn't have a clear third officer. The Constitution stipulated three main officers would make up the Executive Committee, a President, and Executive Secretary, and a Publications Director (later to become the Managing Director). Jack and I had assumed that Lisa Coppoletta, as one of the ringleaders and prime movers of the idea of forming an association, would be taking this position. My memory is that during our talk at her UNCC tournament she had said she was going to do so. Then, after her one year position was up, Lisa had moved back to Texas and taken another one year appointment as the Director of Forensics at Texas Lutheran University. So she was there and she had participated in a couple of the tournaments. But she hadn't participated in any of the deliberations or of the work which had gone into the creation of the association. Nor had she acknowledged a couple of messages which I'd sent her asking about her status as a PDA officer. What she had done is to become increasingly critical of the PDA, it's structure, policies, and tournament administration. Some of her concerns seemed very legitimate - she objected to having individuals both tabbing and competing at the same tournament. Jack and I had no disagreement about this. This practice had been rather a matter of necessity this first season, but we certainly didn't want to make it a policy. Other of Lisa's issues seemed very vague and uncertain to me. She objected to the topics we were offering for reasons which never did become particularly clear. In any case, we entered into the spring semester very much in doubt concerning Lisa Coppoletta's relationship to the PDA. And,
Third, by the end of our first semester, we were already beginning to establish some clear policies and expectations. The association was beginning to take on a life of its own. Debaters would come to tournaments with the general expectation that various conventions would be observed. On the positive side, this helped to insure a certain consistency in tournament administration, especially the topic draw. On the negative side, some things which we wanted to change, such as competitors in the tabroom, were becoming more ingrained.
The first tournament of the spring semester was the Red River Rampage at Louisiana State University, Shreveport. This drew the bare minimum sanctioning requirements of five programs and 16 entries, but sanction it did. Our winning streak was extended by another game.
And then came the Spring Rattler. This tournament was in many ways the largest and most successful PDA tournament to date. And yet it also created a needless controversy which was entirely of my own making. I was quite eager at this point to promote the new association. I felt a certain desperate desire to 'give my creature life.' And, given the concerns of Jack Rogers and others, I was perhaps more worried than I should have been about how this activity would be perceived by outsiders. So when the number of entries for this tournament approached the double-octofinal range, I was determined to push it over the top. We had a fairly solid 33 entries from other programs. And I managed to patch together 31 entries from St. Mary's to reach a legitimate 64 entry field. Then came the opening day of the tournament. And while all 33 non-St. Mary's entries arrived on time and in full, some of my own students failed to show.
Had Jack Rogers been there he would have advised me to simply abandon the Double Octofinals and go with what would still be the strongest Octofinal field the PDA had generated so far. And I'm sure I would have listened to him. But Jack wasn't there. So I began trying to piece together a fix. First I cannibalized my judges, turning them into debaters. And then when other entries didn't show up for the draw, I would award their opponents a win by forfeit and send them out to judge. I sent team members around campus between rounds to scrounge for warm bodies to come in and debate or judge. I pieced together 'entries' by using substitutes. For example, one volunteer was available for a couple of rounds and then had to leave. So I gave her a loss by forfeit the third round and then found another partial volunteer to debate her fourth round. The next morning I had another partial volunteer and then another loss by forfeit. In retrospect this was ridiculous, but on paper at least the tournament barely qualified for Double-Octofinals.
It was a very mixed victory. Whatever positive publicity might have been gained by the Double-Octofinal status was lost by the negative publicity which leaked out concerning the tournament administrative practices. Jack was not happy. He was the one who had to respond to the incredulous Email which came to him concerning this tournament. Of course, on the plus side, competitive practices aside, lots of folks got to compete, there were lots of trophies to hand out, and generally speaking the participants had a great time. But here again, in retrospect the negatives outweighed the positives. So Jack and Trey Gibson (who had helped tab) and I had a discussion via Email and agreed that this kind of tournament administration should not be repeated in the future. At the time, I came away from this agreement with the feeling that the major evil had been the piecing together of 'entries' out of multiple individuals. And this later turned out to be an important mis-understanding on my part. But at the time the problem seemed behind us.
The next tournament was the H.M. Greene Debates at Southwest Texas State. It drew a field of 24 entries from 7 programs and everything seemed well with the world. Except that this is where the problems with Lisa Coppoletta came to a head. Texas Lutheran University was one of the entries and Lisa seemed unhappy with just about everything we were doing most especially the way the topics were written. I had suggested she talk to the tournament host and director, Wayne Kraemer. Wayne said that Public Debate was our kitten and that we should do whatever we thought best. So to keep peace, I tried to work out some compromise solutions. But before the tournament was over Lisa announced the she and Texas Lutheran University were pulling out of the PDA and withdrawing all further support. This unpleasantness aside, the tournament was another hit.
Almost immediately afterwards, Lisa was on the phone to Jack Rogers to complain about the tournament and the way she had been treated. Jack later relayed the substance of this conversation to me and essentially said that in this case I had been right and that Lisa was overreacting. Considering his severely honest expression of displeasure at the Spring Rattler, I was willing to take him at his word on this. So I sent Lisa a formal letter (and left her a phone message) acknowledging her official request to be withdrawn from the PDA and explaining how it would be handled.. I invited her to contact either Jack or me before any changes were officially recorded if she wanted to either modify or retract her request. She never responded to either of us. So Texas Lutheran University was pulled from the official records as never having been a member program of the PDA. And Lisa Coppoletta, who had never actually done any administrative work with the association, was officially recorded has never having accepted the position of Publications Director.
This left us without a third Executive Committee Officer. And by this time, Jack and I had decided that a better title for this officer, given the duties, would be Managing Director. So we were looking for a third officer. We thought of Phil Fisher and Trey Gibson as obvious choices. Phil told us he wouldn't be available and Trey said he would be delighted. This made our choice easy. And on March 11, 1998 Trey Gibson became the first official Managing Director of the PDA.
In the mean time, Texas Southern University, was having trouble with its Barbara Jordan Invitational tournament. The tournament simply wasn't attracting the entries necessary to make it viable. In past years they had even had to cancel the event. So I gave the tournament director, Gloria Batiste Roberts, a call and she agreed to add PDA. I in turn called around and, with the help of Chris Aspdal at the University of Houston, found the necessary entries to make her AFA qualifying numbers. The tournament attracted the 16 necessary PDA entries from a total of 8 programs.
Then came the Spring Scrimmage tournament at St. Mary's. This was our second intramural tournament but this time I had posted it. It sanctioned easily attracting 40 entries from 9 programs and went to Octofinals.
So going into the first Championship Tournament we had finished a remarkably successful regular season. The controversies were comparatively minor and the achievements far beyond what we had expected. By this time, Jack and I had finished our work on the IPDA Constitution. We decided to present it at a special convention at the Championship Tournament and have it approved by the membership. Jack had given in on the issue of a self-perpetuating board. And this Constitutional Convention was my major concession to democracy.
The Convention, which was held on the Thursday before the tournament, ran very smoothly.14 All the business we had to conduct was conducted intelligently and without rancor. The constitution was approved almost without a hitch. When the provision concerning the self-perpetuating Executive Committee came up, Jack surprised me with a very spirited defense of the concept. To my amazement it passed without any problem. Two suggestions for modifications of the document were approved with equal professionalism. Harold Lawson from Central Missouri State University had come down with a contingent of students to have a look at this new animal called Public Debate. He suggested some very intelligent additions to our tournament sanctioning requirements. And Keith Peterson of UT-Tyler called for the creation of a Governing Board which would serve as, a voice for the membership, a clearing house and discussion group for new ideas, and a think tank to generate proposals for change. There was some disagreement about the number and make up of this Board, but eventually this was settled and the PDA had an official constitution.
The First Championship tournament was tabbed by Jack Rogers, the tournament host. He brought a level of rigor and authority to this event which set a fine standard for future tournaments. Things ran exceptionally smoothly until we got to the awards assembly and final round. There were no serious problems or disruptions, there was just a high level of confusion. I guess we weren't really prepared for this and while great fun, the event was a comedy of errors. Phil Fisher captured the whole thing on video tape. Yet no one really seemed to care. The season was over and we were all quite satisfied. The growth in the PDA was almost astounding. We had gone from 8 programs at the start of the season to 48 by the end, and from 12 initial members to a total of 86. But all that aside, I was especially delighted that I could finally bring my students to compete on a debate circuit where they could actually practice what they had learned in the classroom. [Next]
Mission Statement & Introduction I - The Origins of IPDA II - The Organizational Period III - The First Season [1997-98] IV - The Second Season [1998-99] V - The Future of IPDA VI - Endnotes