The Tournament of Champions for the California Cup
The California Cup is set for Saturday, April 21 to Sunday, April 22, 2012.
The tournament will be held at the Bishop O’Dowd High School, 9500 Stearns Avenue, Oakland, CA.
16 teams will be in competition. Teams with 19+ POI points are fully qualified for the cup.
Santa Clara Spring will be the final tournament to be included in the POI rankings prior to the cup.
Any team listed in the POI rankings that does not have 19 POI points by the April 4 application deadline may submit an at-large bid.
Non-California teams are encouraged to submit at-large bids.
Teams are invited to indicate they are interested in serving as an alternate.
Application
Application: http://forensictournament.net/californiacup/12/home/
Deadline for Applications (For Both Fully-Qualified and At-Large Teams): By 11:59 p.m., April 4, 2012
The field will be announced April 6, 2012. No team is guaranteed entry until this date.
Fees
$110 per team. Fees should be received before April 14, 2012.
There will be a $75 drop-fee assessed to teams that drop after April 6, 2012. Teams that drop after April 7 will still be required to pay entry fees and judge fees in addition to the drop-fee.
Please makes checks payable to: “Bishop O’Dowd Debate Team.” Please write in account #1265 in the memo section of the check.
Please mail your check to: O’Dowd Debate, Attention: Jon Thorpe, Bishop O’Dowd High School, 9500 Stearns Avenue, Oakland, California, 94605.
Judging
A qualified judge must be provided for each entry. A qualified judge is a Head Coach, an assistant parliamentary debate coach, a former high school debater who previously qualified to California Cup or the State Tournament in parli, or a current or former college debater. Exceptions can be made by the tournament director.
The fee for not providing a judge is $125
Judges must submit their judging philosophies by 04/16. The fee for not submitting a philosophy by the deadline is $50.
Assistance
We will try to help attending schools if there are any financial or logistical difficulties.
Schedule
Saturday, April 21
1:30 – 2:00 p.m. – Registration
2:00 – 3:30 p.m. – Round 1
3:30 – 5:00 p.m. – Round 2
5:00 – 6:30 p.m. – Round 3
6:30 – 8:00 p.m. – Round 4
Sunday, April 22
8:30 – 10:00 a.m. – Round 5
10:00 – 11:30 a.m. – Round 6
11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. – Round 7
1:00 – 2:00 p.m. – Lunch
2:00 – 3:30 p.m. – Semifinals
3:30 – 5:00 p.m. – Finals
All teams are encouraged to attend the final round to participate in the floor vote.
Rules
CHSSA rules will be used as a guideline with the following exceptions:
1. Points of Information are allowed in all speeches at all time. There is no protected time.
2. Points of Order are allowed in rebuttals. Points of Order can be made if the opposing side brings up a new argument in the rebuttal with the exceptions of examples illustrating previous arguments and PMR responses to new arguments made in the MOC. Points of Order are not included in speech times.
3. During preparation time, debaters are not allowed to consult with anyone except their respective partners. They are, however, allowed to access any printed material that was prepared before the start of preparation time, as long as this material is not used in round. Laptops are allowed. All debaters will be able to log-on to the O’Dowd network.
4. Judges are encouraged, but not required, to disclose and explain their decisions after the round, as long as this does not jeopardize the time efficiency of the tournament.
5. A 0-10 speaker point scale will be used. A speaker point score in a regular 0-30 scale is converted into this by subtracting 20. Judges are asked to average at around 6.5 and reserve scores of 8.5 or higher for debaters who, given their performance in the particular round, deserve to clear.
6. There are no walkovers in this tournament. Effort will be made to keep teams from the same school from hitting one another in preliminary rounds. However if two teams from the same school are paired against one another in either preliminary rounds or the elimination rounds, the schools must debate.
7. All rounds are open to the public. Teams may not refuse entry to spectators. However, judges have the discretion to ask spectators to be removed from the room if their behavior is disruptive to the round.
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Same date as SCU2?
Is there another date?
March 31 happens to be the same day as the Coast Forensic League National qualifier for Congress. Considering the fact that Parli is not (yet!) a national event, for many debaters, Congress is our only shot at nationals. It gives CFL kids a hard decision; it’s disappointing to have to choose between two things that are very important to us.
We very much hope that these dates are reconsidered; perhaps a date closer to the CHSSSA state tournament would be beneficial for all of us (Apr 14/15 or 22/23?). Unfortunately, as these dates stand, we at Los Gatos at least, are sad to say we would be unable to attend as we only have one coach to take us to tournaments, and she will be at the national congress qualifier that day.
-Christina Gilbert & Adam Silverman
The Cup has been rescheduled for April 14 – 15, 2012. Hopefully this will put the Cup in the clear.
Perfect! Adam and I will be there!
If that is the case, could the rolling application process be extended to March 12 or 13? (I assume it’s rolling?)
There are several state qualifying tournaments that could add more “diversity” to the point details.
Thanks.
Would a Cup reschedule for the April 21-22 weekend be possible?
Saratoga has a large school event all day on April 14–and an April 21-22 schedule is free of other tournament conflicts.
Additionally, as Christina mentioned earlier, this would be closer to the CHSSA state tournament and would be very beneficial for multiple reasons. Furthermore, having the tournament after spring break would allow the debaters to practice and brush up, as they have busy school schedules. This would allow for a better Cal Cup, as the competitors would be in even better shape than before, and for better results for those who attend the state tournament as well.
We would extremely appreciate it if this final date is considered.
Thanks,
Shauray Agrawal & Justin Chiang
Incidentally, would anyone be averse to the idea of an April 7th Parli/PoFo invitational at Prospect High School? It could be a warmup for CaliCup and State Finals, as well as a consolation for the teams that don’t make CaliCup, States, or Nationals. What’s the consensus?
The only issue I see is an overcrowded April debate calendar.
Post here or let me know at prospectdebate@gmail.com .
Thanks!
Rohan
A prospect invitational sounds really nice. I, for one, would really appreciate the chance for more practice.
Bump for Shauray’s proposal above.
I also think an April 21-22 date would be better. Like he said, it is the week before the state tournament which would help us all.
Mr. Morris mentioned on the at-large big post that “…our goal is to maximize the amount of debate (because we want CalCuppers to win State the week thereafter).”
Moving it to the week after would, indeed, give us more practice for the state tournament by having the CalCup the preceding weekend, like Mr. Morris said.
I’m for an April 21-22 schedule. Really hope it’s considered.
I’d like that! Los Gatos (and many other CFL teams, I’m sure) can’t go to SCU2 because of N. Quals congress so I’d love to get rounds in the weekend before cali cup!
@ Rohan: A prospect invitational sounds fun, especially since some of us didn’t get an opportunity to go to your first one! I would definitely be up for it.
@ Shauray: That is actually a good idea. I second that, because I know that a lot of neighboring schools hold school-wide events that weekend as well, so it may be difficult for some debaters to make it to CalCup that weekend.
FYI Oregon state tourney is April 19-21
Are there any any Oregon teams that would qualify/attend Cali Cup this year? I can’t seem to find one on the rankings.
But I’m for the April 21 move as well. More convenient for us, and it’s also better practice for states. Hope this happens!
Thanks,
Sam
I did indeed say that maximizing quality debate experience in preparation for state is a good idea. However, in this case, I still just feel that having it back to back puts a lot of strain on debaters (especially those outside the Bay Area, who would have to do long drives or flights on consecutive weekends). A recovery week in between would be good. This is just my opinion and does not necessarily reflect the view of POI as a whole.
I believe Bishop O’Dowd is going to the UO tournament. Hopefully they can use that opportunity to invite Oregon teams
Can the application deadline be extended to mid March so State QUALS POI points may be added in?
The currently scheduled date of the Cup is on the same day as Windsor’s Prom, so we would prefer the date change
Perm it, you’re already wearing the suit.
Sorry Jason, but because of space availability issues, the desire not to conflict with SCU 2, and not wanting to make SoCal teams make two trips north on two consecutive weekends, April 14 – 15 is going to be the date of the tournament. I agree with Mr. Morris. Debate in a tux and be parli’s answer to James Bond.
OK, thank you for considering though! Tux it is
Because the Cal Cup is occurring later in the year, points from qualifiers may be factored in. However, this will also result in Cal Cup autoqual points being raised from 16 to possibly 18.
Will this year’s Cal Cup participants need to make hotel reservations, or will they be staying with Bishop O’Dowd students like last year?
How do we send in an at large bid?
@Jeff, if cost is an issue, I’ll try to arrange sleeping arrangements with O’Dowd debaters for Saturday night.
@Anonymous, at-large bids are going to be handled by Mr. Raskin. We’ll be posting more info as we get closer to the end of March.
Mr. Thorpe will be releasing the official invite later, but I’d imagine the application instructions would be the same they were last year (http://www.forensicstournament.net/tournamentdocs/526-California%20Cup%20application.htm). The only difference for this year is that at-large applications can include a video/audio round recording from a tournament the team attended. This is optional.
Question: It says students will be able to log onto the O’Dowd network. Does this mean internet is allowed? If so, how will the “not consulting with anyone but your partner” rule be enforced, given the availability of IM clients?
Two questions: first when is the tournament? I’ve seen like three different dates floating around. And second: is the tournament hiring judges?
I’m a bit confused by the dates too, but it seems like Mr. Thorpe committed to 21-22
And yes, judges will be hired
This is the final date. Absolutely no changes from here on out.
can someone answer my question?
Who should I contact if I would like to put my name in to be hired as a judge?
@Armand-I imagine it might be like any tournament that allows computers but not internet during prep. During prep internet has to be shown to be off, access to files must be in a dropbox kind of situation, and internet can be used between rounds.
If internet can be used during prep, it would require more monitoring to be sure someone isn’t IMing a remote person, but if you’re allowing internet searching during prep, you might as well allow it as not. You’re looking at SCU rules at that point.
Internet prep was allowed last year if I recall correctly
Armand – I might be wrong (and Artem please correct me if this is the case), but I do believe that last year’s California Cup at SCU allowed the use of the internet during prep time and if this was the case, I don’t think it negatively impacted the quality of what is hands down the best high school parli tournament.
One thing that will not happen is the TOC for the Cal Cup is not going to go the way of a prep room with a proctor and colored paper.
Jon, I’m actually very pleased with that, since that’s essentially college parli. I just wanted to check to make sure. Thank you!
So who should I talk to if I would like to be hired as a judge?
mail at pointofinformation.org
pretty sure we can hire you
Very cool
How will pairings work with 18 teams in the pool? Will it be podded and mostly like a round-robin, or re-paired every round?
How do you guys plan on getting the squals packets from those leagues that have yet to turn in said packets?
@Curiosity – (1) Someone who participated in the tournament could email us the packet or, (2) someone sends us a link to the site where results are posted. Once one of these two things occurs, we’re good. But the onus is on the squals’ participants to make this info public. Until we see the results, we can’t factor the points into the rankings.
Hi, is there a possibility to change the name of this tournament?
If we truly want to make Parli a nationally recognized event and less California-centric, the first step is to replace the “California Cup” with another name.
Since our POI rankings include national tournaments (Yale/Oregon), the cumulative POI national tournament should similarly be titled in a manner representing the nation, rather than the state.
Could this request be considered?
The tournament is now “The Tournament of Champions for the California Cup” in order to reflect the event’s larger national aspirations.
However, I think it’s important to keep a connection to the origins, so the prize awarded to the tournament’s winners will be the “California Cup.”
This year, there will be an actual California Cup awarded to the tournament’s victors.
Darn. Cal Cup was rescheduled to be the same day as CVFL nat quals.
Sorry to repost but I thought this was the more appropriate spot:
I don’t know where I’d post this, and I know there has been previous discussion on the fact, but currently, my partner and I are on track to qualify for this tournament. However, the California Cup falls exactly on the Saturday of my school’s (along with MANY other schools’) prom. It also conflicts with many college admit weekends. I really, really want to go to the California Cup, and I was wondering if there was any possibility of it changing (either weekends, which would be hard, or changing days). If it could even be made on a Sunday/Monday ordeal, I’m sure everyone would still go, and it would allow those of us with conflicts on that Saturday. Thanks for any consideration!
It is too late for the tournament to be rescheduled. However, if there are a significant number of teams that would be unable to attend due to other conflicting functions, the tournament schedule could theoretically be tweaked (for an earlier Saturday finish, perhaps). I am not Jon Thorpe, though. I do not have the final say on this, nor do I have knowledge of the logistics at Bishop O’Dowd.
If other teams find these specific times difficult, they should let it be known so that we can at least try to adapt the schedule to teams’ needs.
I agree with parli debater–my school would reconsider attending if the tournament finished by early afternoon on Saturday or skipped Sat. altogether
oh god please no more date changes…mr. thorpe said April 21 was final
If we could just move it off of a Saturday (offset it by a day) we could really make it more accessible and fun for everybody…
Again, dates will almost certainly not change; times MIGHT.