The administrative changes and adjustments which took place between the end of the 1997-98 season and the start of the 1998-99 season, more properly belong to the discussion of the latter. One of the first things to happen were elections to fill the new 9-member Governing Board. The GB was to consist of three sets of officers. There were three Program Seats, elected by the various program members of the PDA; there were three General Seats, elected by the full individual membership; and there were three Appointed Seats, selected by the Executive Committee. One of each set were to be given a three-year term, one a two-year term, and one a one-year term of office. Then as each term of office came up, there would be a new election or appointment to replace the retiring individual with a new three-year officer. The elections ran smoothly and the first Governing Board officers were:
Don Black, Kansas City Kansas Community College
Program Representative, 2-Year Seat Johnny Callis, Texas A&M University-Commerce
Program Representative, 1-Year Seat Mike Fisher, Arkansas State University
Appointed Representative, 1-Year Seat Karen Gibson, St. Mary's University
General Representative, 3-Year Seat Jorji Jarzabek, Louisiana State University-Shreveport
Appointed Representative, 3-Year Seat Harold Lawson, Central Missouri State University
Program Representative, 3-Year Seat Shane McMahon, Texas Public Debate
Appointed Representative, 2-Year Seat Chair: Keith Peterson, University of Texas-Tyler
General Representative, 2-Year Seat Nathan Trager, University of Texas-Tyler
General Representative, 1-Year Seat
During the summer a second development conference was held, this time at St. Mary's University. It was coupled with a very small Summer Debate Institute. The idea was to pre-test an educational debate institute format which could be taught along Public Debate lines. We only had a few takers for the institute but almost a full turnout of PDA officers. One of the outcomes of the development conference is that the Governing Board recommended changing the name of the organization from the "Public Debate Association" to the "International Public Debate Association." We already had member programs in 8 countries, so this seemed a logical decision. But it did strike me as somewhat presumptuous. However, since there was unanimous agreement among all of the other officers, I went along. The decision led to one important change in my thinking, however.
I had envisioned the idea of holding a debate tournament over the Internet. Such a tournament might take place across all state and national boundaries at very low cost. There were a great many unknowns involved so I was using the summer to explore and pretest the idea. But because of the name change in the organization I accelerated my timetable. I had initially been thinking about doing more developmental work and hosting the first Email debate tournament in the 1999-2000 season. Instead, I moved ahead to host our first international Email debate tournament that same season.
In addition to a good deal of other bureaucratic work, I started working on an IPDA web site. I had volunteered the free web page space which came with my Internet access account at Texas.net but had put off trying to actually build the site since I didn't have a clue how to proceed. So I'd spent a fruitless season looking for an experienced webmaster to take on the project.. That summer I simply went out and got the cheapest Internet web page program I could find that promised it was simple enough for even an idiot to understand. And by late August the IPDA had a primitive web page in place.
Almost immediately, in September, I received a message out of the blue from Shuman Ghosemajumder, President of Anadas International, a Canadian computer software company. Shuman had been President of CUSID and was offering free web space for interested debating organizations. He offered IPDA a permanent home, free of charge and our own domain name. I'll admit I was more than a little skeptical. But after doing some research and checking this out as much as possible, I said OK. If we were ever going to relocate the IPDA web site, this was the best time. And here we are. Shuman and Anadas were everything he claimed and IPDA seems to have a permanent cyberhome.
One final development of the summer was that I convinced my fellow officers to allow me to farm out a contract for the creation of our IPDA logo to a Dutch graphic arts firm, Maseland Grafische Vormgeving bv based in Culemborg, the Netherlands. The owners were old friends who had helped to arrange a Dutch debate tour for St. Mary's University several years before. I knew they did outstanding work, as since we were now an international organization, I felt the more international players we could get involved, the better.
The first tournament of the second season was again the Kansas City Kick Off. Only this time it sanctioned easily with 39 entries from 6 programs. The second tournament was the Fall Scrimmage at St. Mary's which the year before had been an intramural event. This year it went to Octofinals with 32 entries from 8 programs. The third tournament of the year was the first IPDA competition in Arkansas. It was hosted by the University of Arkansas-Monticello. It sanctioned easily going to Octofinals with 41 entries from 7 programs. And then came the Sam Houston tournament. The first tournament to sanction (just barely) the year before and the fourth this year. Sam Houston had barely made it the first season, but this time attracted 25 entries from 7 programs.
The Diamondback Classic found itself in direct conflict with a Houston Area tournament which had been mysteriously added to the schedule. This siphoned off several Houston area schools which normally attended the Diamondback and sometimes contributed Public Debate entries. We were especially sorry to lose San Jacinto College South to the Houston tournament. But Public Debate suffered only a minor setback. The numbers were down from 48 the year before to 37 this year and the number of participating programs went from 9 to 8. These numbers suggest that there would have been substantial grown in the tournament had it not been for the conflict. But I was assured but tournament organizer, Dan West of Rice University, that this scheduling conflict was a mistake and would not be repeated in the future.
By now the Email tournament was well underway with participants from 9 countries. Shane McMahon a Governing Board member from Texas Public Debate was serving as the Email Tournament Director.
I also noticed we were running out of ballots. The first 5,000 were not going to last the second season, so shaking my head with wonder I put in an order for an additional 10,000.
About this time, the IPDA was experiencing its second major conflict. Something was going on in the UT-Tyler program. There had been a falling out between the program and three of its members. In and of itself, this was merely an intra-program disciplinary matter. But the three members who had been ejected from the squad had applied to the Executive Secretary for independent program status.
At the time, I knew almost nothing about the nature of the conflict. They wanted to form a separate debating club on the UT-Tyler campus and used Texas Public Debate as a precedent. As presented in their petition for program status, there had simply been a difference of opinion regarding coaching philosophy so they had decided to leave the team to go their own way. And since Jack had made it a point not to spread any negative information about this conflict, I was aware of nothing which contradicted this interpretation. So I granted them provisional status and tried to find out more about what was going on.
The next scheduled tournament was the Gateway in St. Louis Missouri. It was in a similar position to the KCKCC tournament of the year before. It was on the extreme far edge of the IPDA range of participating programs. Also, it was an extremely expensive tournament which most IPDA members could well afford to pass up. It only attracted 4 programs and 9 entries. But the host director, Tom Preston, was impressed enough with IPDA to make a point of telling me that he intended to offer the event again during the next season.
And then came the Patriot Games tournament where the problem of the three dissident members of the UT-Tyler program reached a crisis. Jack wouldn't allow them to enter the tournament as a rogue program. I was still moving in the dark, trying to simultaneously protect the sensibilities and prerogatives of the host director (who also happened to be President of the association) and to protect the rights and feelings of the three students who were temporarily organized as a program member of the IPDA. Shortly before the tournament, in a very statesmanlike move, Jack agreed to allow the three students to compete, but only as independent entries. This seemed acceptable to all and the show went on. The tournament was one of the largest in IPDA history. There were 57 entries from 12 programs.
During this tournament a couple of important governance matters were taken up. Trey Gibson, who was now an assistant coach at the University of Arkansas at Monticello, announced that he did not want to have his position as Managing Director renewed. He said he preferred to be appointed to the Governing Board if that were possible. Jack and I deliberated for awhile and decided that Mike Fisher of Arkansas State University would be a great new Managing Director if he were willing. He was.
And this led to the second important governance matter which was discussed. Jack called a special Executive Committee meeting which included both Trey Gibson and Mike Fisher to discuss several items including and especially the problem of the rogue program on his campus. Mike led me to believe that he and several other tournament directors would be unwilling to allow such a program to enter their tournaments. Jack was very concerned about the precedent we would set if, as an association, we would sanction the existence and participation of a program that had been outlawed by a Director of Forensics for just cause. This raised all kinds of issues and problems which there simply wasn't enough time to discuss. I told Jack that if he wanted to make a formal protest under the grievance provisions of the Constitution, we would find a way to resolve it. He decided to wait and think some more before starting anything official.
And there matters stood with a 3-week break before the next IPDA tournament. At this point, sitting alone in my office at home and recording the results of the Patriot Games tournament, I made what seemed at the time to be a minor bookkeeping decision but which forced this issue toward a resolution. The individual sanctioning points earned at the Patriot Games Tournament by the three dissident debaters were going to be allowed. This much had been agreed to by all parties well ahead of time. And since the rogue debating club which they had created was not allowed to officially enter the Patriot Games Tournament, there was no question of team sweepstakes points from the tournament perspective. But what about program sweepstakes points for the IPDA season? That was a puzzle to me. On the one hand, if they weren't allowed to enter the Patriot Games Tournament as a team they shouldn't be allowed to earn program points. Right? But on the other hand, if they earned individual sweepstakes points, then those individual sweepstakes points would automatically count toward their program season totals as well. And if all three sets of points counted individually, then they should be totaled together in the cumulative point rankings, Right? So which was it to be?
At the time, the logic of the second position seemed stronger. Remember, I was still working in relative ignorance. Jack still hadn't divulged many of the details concerning the nature of the problem and the subsequent political situation on his campus. So I went ahead and recorded and posted the rogue program points. And this led almost immediately to a formal protest being filed by the UT-Tyler program which called for the expulsion of the rogue program and its members.
I first suggested resolving this problem by appointing a special committee. But Jack said that the political situation on his campus wouldn't allow the extra time this would take. Trey was backing Jack up on this, so I reluctantly agreed to take part in an administrative resolution at the LSU-Shreveport tournament which was coming up. In a wonderful twist of irony, Jack had become a strong proponent of the self-perpetuating board using its discretionary power where I supported a more democratic/procedural solution.
At the LSUS tournament meeting Mike Fisher sat in and 'voted in Jack's place,' since Jack was going to recuse himself given his obvious conflict of interest. I said I was willing to participate but that I was not going to be party to a lynching. The process had to be fair or I would be forced to resign from my position as an association officer. This was not an idle threat or lightly made. I still had very few facts and no idea why things had to be rushed along like this.
In Shreveport, almost immediately I got a chance to speak with a number of the UT-Tyler team members who were first hand witnesses to much of what had taken place. Later that first day of the tournament, the Executive Committee met in special session in Jorji Jarzabek's office. Jack finally laid out the details concerning the problem with the three debaters. His account was completely consistent with what the various witnesses had reported. Suffice to say, the students had been dismissed for good and sufficient cause. Furthermore, Jack went into the political problems this had created and it was clear the rogue debaters' continued ability to operate as an independent debating club on the UT-Tyler campus was seriously detrimental to both the UT-Tyler forensics program and to Jack's ability to function as Director of Forensics. We all quickly agreed that whatever else we did, it was critically important that the rules which governed the IPDA must offer the same basic protections and privileges to our program directors that were offered by other debate and individual events associations. In this case it meant that individuals who were kicked off of teams for cause by program directors could not use our association as a way of making trouble for those directors or their teams.
At that meeting we agreed on the general principles first, set the general policy second, and then applied it to the specific situation last. Jack took part in the discussion but did not vote. And in the end, the necessary policy was clear. So long as they remained registered students at the UT-Tyler campus, the dissident debaters remained under the jurisdiction of the UT-Tyler Program Director and could only participate as individuals or form an independent program with his approval (which in this case they would not get). The new policy was posted on the web site.15 And I can say, coming out of this meeting that I felt very good about and in complete agreement with the results. More than anything else, I felt that the process by which this decision had been reached had been fair and just and was clearly in the best interests of the association.
At the time, I also felt somewhat guilty about having made the "wrong" decision when recording the Patriot Games tournament results. But with time and distance I think perhaps not. By recording the rogue program's sweepstakes points, it provoked a quick crisis which led to a quick resolution. And this might have been in the best interest of all concerned. If I had decided the other way, there might not have been a formal protest for some time, if at all. In this case, the problem might have lingered in a semi-resolved state for quite some time. At any rate, the conflict was over and faded quickly away.
As far as the LSUS tournament itself, the Louisiana Lagniappe, there 34 entries from 12 programs and went to Octofinals.
Comparing the fall semesters of the first two IPDA seasons. During the fall of 1997 the IPDA had a total of four sanctioned tournaments, three went to Quarterfinals and one went to Octofinals. During the fall of 1998 there were a total of seven sanctioned tournaments, and six went to Octofinals. That was, in my opinion, an incredible increase in interest and support.
Then in the spring of 1999, things began to get really busy. Election 1999 involved the first generation of new Governing Board members, and there were three constitutional issues on the ballot as well.
The first tournament of the spring semester, the Dr. Arnold Henry Debate and Forensics Tournament at Arkansas Technological University, attracted a field of 20 entries from 9 programs. It was the second quarterfinal tournament of the season.
The Missouri Mule hosted by Central Missouri State University, which was sitting at the extreme northern range of the IPDA schools, attracted an incredible and solid 64 entries from 14 programs. It was the first IPDA tournament to legitimately go to Double-Octofinals. And more importantly, this tournament attracted a large number of new schools which were encouraged to take a look at the Public Debate event. The major credit for this success must go the CMSU Director of Forensics, Harold Lawson, for his innovative marketing of Public Debate.
Flush on this success, just two weeks later, I managed to screw things up again at the Spring Rattler. The tournament looked like a lock to go to double-octos given the strength of last seasons showing and our geographic location. But the Arkansas State University tournament conflicted and this drew enough support away to put us in almost the same position as the year before. Since I was resolved not to make the same mistake again, I simply reconciled myself to an Octofinal tournament. But folks kept entering in unexpected numbers. And with a couple of days to go, I found myself with over 60 entries. So I started doing what I had promised myself I would not do. I kept thinking of the folks like Don Black and Harold Lawson who were driving down from Kansas City and Warrensburg to participate. So I started beating the bushes looking for enough additional entries to make the magic 64. Like the year before we got there without too much difficulty. And like the year before things started falling apart once the tournament began. Here again, my better judgement was betrayed by being too close. Things didn't unravel nearly as quickly or nearly as completely as the last time. And patching the problem did not require that I create hybrid entries of mixed individuals. (This is what I had misunderstood to be the critical error of the year before.) This year it was a lack of judges, much more than a lack of competitors which sunk me. On paper, I had almost twice as many judges as I needed. I was well covered for the first two rounds. And then my judges started to desert. So I used a solution which I'd applied before in the early days of the IPDA. I broke up scheduled debates involving my weaker classroom students, gave them each a bye, and turned them into judges for the round. And for those debaters who had to miss a round for one reason or another (and there were many who had to leave early or would show up late for one round), I would give their opponent a win by forfeit and turn them into judges as well.
From a competitive standpoint, this was hardly an ideal way to run a tournament. But from a pedagogical perspective, I still don't think it was particularly evil. My great sin, however, was in planning to post this as a Double-Octofinal tournament. For this sin against the rules and spirit of competition, I was rightly chastised by Jack Rogers as well as several others. And Jack perhaps, more than anyone, had a right to be vexed since he had just going through a difficult problem on his campus which still wasn't completely resolved, he was facing a number of other conflicts and crises as well. So the last thing he needed was the deluge of Email which followed on the heels of this second Spring Rattler debacle. We quickly decided to simply count this as an Octofinal tournament, Jack made some adjustments in the number of preliminary round sweepstakes points, and the matter faded within a couple of weeks. This was another good moral lesson which I would have been delighted to have lived without.
Officially, and without controversy, the Spring Rattler was an Octofinal tournament with a field of 56 drawn from 15 programs. Still quite impressive. And the Arkansas State University tournament which took place on the same weekend attracted a field of 27 from 7 programs. This meant that on this particular weekend there were a total of 83 individual debaters from (adjusting for overlap) 19 different programs participating in an IPDA tournament. This was definitely a high water mark for the Public Debate event.
Two additional concerns came out of the Spring Rattler affair. The first was a general concern about the direction of IPDA vis a vis the relationship between pedagogy and competition. When the tournament itself was over, almost everyone came away feel good about it. I was feeling almost euphoric. It seemed to be a terrific tournament which gave everyone involved a really wonderful experience. It wasn't until the next day when the critical messages started pouring in (all based on competition rather than educational value) that I began to feel guilty and depressed about how things had turned out. In follow-up discussions with Jack and others I have come to have a greater appreciation for the delicate balance among factors such as competition, winning, budget, job security, idealism, practicality, and pedagogy. The IPDA must per force strike a balance between pedagogy and competition. But I have come to see that balance as a much more difficult and complex problem when viewed through the myriad perspectives of the various programs and individuals who have participated or are thinking about participating in Public Debate.
The second concern which followed this tournament involved governance. Control of the organization was quickly defusing. The difference between the kinds of decisions which Jack and I were able to make during the early months of our first season and the later months of our second season, vividly show how quickly real control had slipped out of our hands. There was a powerful inertia involved now. We were, to a large degree, becoming limited by tradition, precedent, expectations, and public opinion. I felt like an artist modeling a complex structure in clay. The clay was hardening even as I worked and the model kept getting bigger. Meanwhile, new artists with somewhat different visions keep joining in to help. I was not sure if this was going to be a good or bad thing in the long term. But it was certainly something we would have to keep track of and think about.
The next tournament in the spring was the H.M Greene Debates at Southwest Texas State. This tournament was almost the identical size as the year before. Then came the Red River Classic (formally the Red River Rampage) which went from 16 entries and 5 programs to 27 entries and 8 programs in one year. It struck me that this represented just about average growth in a tournament from the season before.
The Barbara Jordan Invitational was still somewhat shaky as a tournament but it was very solid in its IPDA division. It went from 16 entries from 8 programs the year before to 32 entries from 9 programs. And the The Spring Scrimmage at St. Mary's drew a field of 51 from 11 programs. This was also up from 41 and 9 the year before.
The final tournament of the regular season, the 'new' Lonestar Classic which changed both weekends and host programs, was a big success. It was directed by Kevin Piwowarski of Texas Public Debate and was entirely student run. It was also on time and without significant controversy. There were 32 entries from 7 programs and the tournament went to Octofinals. It generated enough revenue to allow a contingent of TPD debaters to attend the Championship Tournament.
To compare the spring semesters of the first and second year of IPDA: During the spring of 1998 there were five sanctioned tournaments, three went to Quarterfinals, one went to Octofinals, and one (the Spring Rattler) was officially recorded as a very dubious Double-Octofinal tournament. During the spring of 1999 there were a total of nine sanctioned tournaments, four of these were Octofinals, and one (The Missouri Mule) went very solidly to Double-Octofinals. Here again, we witnessed a sizable increase in both interest and support.
The summary data for the first two IPDA seasons suggests remarkable growth:
| 1997-98 | 1998-99 | |
| Quarterfinal Tournaments: | 6 | 5 |
| Octofinal Tournaments: | 2 | 10 |
| Double-Octofinal Tournaments: | 1? | 1 |
| Total Sanctioned Tournaments: | 9 | 16 |
And this brings us to the 1999 Championship Tournament hosted by LSU-Shreveport.
The convention and business meetings ran very smoothly. There were two scholarly panels. One included three paper presentations and the other was a special panel on the Email debate tournament. The three new members of the Governing Board became official. Joseph Hoelscher of St. Mary's University became the new Program Representative; Kevin Piwowarski of Texas Public Debate became the new General Representative; and Trey Gibson of the University of Arkansas at Monticello became the new Appointed Representative. Mike Fisher, of course, was announced as the new Managing Director. All three constitutional amendments were approved. A new non-dues-paying observer-membership category was created; and two bylaws, one defining programs and the second defining the rules of membership affiliation were added.
A total of 85 debaters entered the Championship Tournament: 63 in the Open Division and 22 in the Novice Division. The decision was made by the Executive Committee that it wasn't strictly necessary for the End of the Season Championship Tournament to follow the same sanctioning rules as the regular season tournaments (since the final tournament points weren't counted toward the season's cumulative sweepstakes totals). Hence the Tournament was allowed to break to Double-Octofinals with an official field of only 63 (Actually it was 63-and a half since the 64th entry could only stay for 3 of her preliminary rounds). 18 different programs sent representatives to participate.
The Championship Tournament schedule was very tight and this led to a few tabulation errors, but otherwise things ran smoothly. At the awards assembly all of the regular season and Championship Tournament awards were presented along with the various Email tournament awards. And it was notable for the IPDA that the top Email Essayist was from Singapore and the First Place finisher was from Israel. [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