NFL downgrades parli
NFL Board of Directors Spring Minutes
“Moved by Sheaff, seconded by McDonald
‘In debate, Policy, Lincoln Douglas, and Public Forum rounds shall be worth 6 points for a win and 3 points for a loss (status quo). Congressional Debate shall be limited to 24 points per day (status quo). Parliamentary Debate and any other state sanctioned forms of debate should be given 4 points for a win and 2 points for a loss.
In speech, NFL main events should be given 6 points for 1st, 5 points for 2nd, 4 points for 3rd, 3 points for 4th, and 2 points for 5th, 6th, and 7th. Non-NFL main events (Impromptu, Storytelling, Prose, Poetry, Declamation, etc.) should receive 5 points for 1st, 4 pts for 2nd, 3 pts for 3rd, 2 points for 4th, and 1 point for 5th, 6th, and 7th.’”
A message from Mr. Abad:
“Not sure if this has made it onto the parli community’s radar yet, but the NFL now officially recognizes Parli with regard to earning NFL points. However, they have decided to only award 4 points for a win and 2 points for a loss (instead of 6 and 3 points, respectively, for all other forms of debate). Please contact your NFL district chair ASAP to protest this unfair treatment of parli.
Terry Abad
GGSA President
Lowell High School
San Francisco”
8 Comments to NFL downgrades parli
Leave a Reply
what.
Because Parli is SO much easier than Pubfo.
Very unfair to parliamentary debaters. The times for the rounds are 777755 compared to pubfo’s 44442222. Even if you don’t buy that, they are pretty much classifying Parli as an IE when it does infact require debating skills as well as a large amount of general knowledge to do well in. Ridiculous.
The only reason I can think of for why they might give fewer points for parli is because most parli debaters don’t have any prewritten cases (and perhaps NFL believes that all parli debaters don’t do any work before tournaments either)
strangely enough, that “spontaneous” aspect of the debate (limited prep), in addition to the mostly current events-based topics, is similar to the model set forth by extemporaneous speaking… if extemp can be classified as a main NFL IE event, and parli uses very similar skills, there shouldn’t be any reason for segregating parli in this manner.
perhaps the stereotypes surrounding parli will change over time, but I don’t see it happening too quickly
It didn’t seem like their decision was based on the actual content of Parli itself, but rather the fact that Parli is not nationally sanctioned. I would assume that 4-person policy (WI or MN does this, I think) would drop to 4/2 as well, as well as Mock Trial rounds. Those all require lots of evidence and preparation.
Also, it’s interesting to note that all State-specific individual events are now 5,4,3,2,1,1…while all Nationally recognized events are 6,5,4,3,2,1. So, impromptu and Original Advocacy are now worth the same amount. Maybe that’s fair, maybe that’s not. I liked the old system better.
i don’t think this is too unfair. the fact is that parli does require less work… just watch at tournaments. even the teams that do well just bring in a few canned cases… have you ever seen parli debaters with 10 tubs like extempers, LDers or policy kids?
instead, i feel like they should also downgrade pofo. pofo is shorter (time wise), and also requires less work in my opinion.
This debate (“Parli = No Work/Inferior to Policy in Every Way”) has happened on POI more times than I care to remember. I’d like to not get into it again: no one gets anywhere.
Suffice to say they’re different ballgames. Parli and PF have their own values and limitations, as do LD and CX.
I would like to see you draw the line of which events deserve more points than others. Does the elaborate choreography of a Duo make it worth more than a DI? Is Oratory less difficult than Interp? If we begin to draw lines that implicitly value certain events over others, we perpetuate the event’s failure.
The question we’re actually looking at with the State of Parli is whether NFL should reduce points because an event is not nationally sanctioned. It is independent of the merits of the event (which I believe you have misrepresented, but again, not getting into that).
I happen to like parli, and I would like to see it become a national event some day.
But if the question is whether non-nationally recognized events should count for less points, I tend to agree with NFL. Awarding parli full points means NFL would also have to give full points to the million and one goofy events other states made up. I think there is a value to having a national circuit and that that circuit disintegrates with excessive decentralization. States should, of course, be allowed to experiment, but the results of their experiments shouldn’t be automatically held on equal footing with events designed through a more comprehensive deliberation process.