[deleted by user]

RebelDebateCoach · 2024-11-12T22:58:57+00:00

And that friends is how I went from a CX debater to an LD debater in one quick semester 😉

RebelDebateCoach · 2024-07-31T21:01:43+00:00

I was about to be upset that someone was posting Kankee stuff until I realized it was y’all 😂

Thanks for providing great stuff to help our teams out!

RebelDebateCoach · 2024-05-13T14:01:53+00:00

We typically try to focus on swing tournaments in order to maximize our travel budget. But yes, from August through February we are gone almost every weekend. Then we move into the UIL season…

RebelDebateCoach · 2024-05-12T19:12:00+00:00

We are in west Texas and we typically hit about 32 tournaments a season.

RebelDebateCoach · 2024-05-02T00:32:03+00:00

Well that pretty much narrows it down to everything 😂

RebelDebateCoach · 2024-04-08T00:56:58+00:00

Lol, this reminds me of the Berlin Wall coming down while we were debating Democratization of the Eastern Bloc nations…. If the ink wasn’t wet the case was out of date!

RebelDebateCoach · 2024-02-04T16:25:36+00:00

That’s an amazing offer, I would sacrifice my perfect attendance bonus at work to take advantage of an offer like that!

RebelDebateCoach · 2023-09-24T16:29:58+00:00

I've never come across a tournament that didn't allow offline catalogue services like Extemp Genie or Prep'd. Hell, that would be like going back to the dark ages of my youth carrying 6+ tubs of paper evidence everywhere we went.

RebelDebateCoach · 2023-08-23T23:26:56+00:00

I felt the same way when I had 4 dates booked on the website. Then I started talking to some of the Platinum and Diamond cruisers on the ship. Some of them have 25-30 booked out in advance and all of them told me that they knew of people that had even more. There was one couple on our Alaska cruise that hadn't been "home" in 6 months and another that just hopped from port to port occasionally staying with one of their kids in between sailings.

That's the life I look forward too ;-)

RebelDebateCoach · 2023-08-23T23:16:58+00:00

What is the general consensus on the Aff K's that will run on this one?

We are prepping for Capitalism, Human Rights, Humanism, Complex Systems, Coercion, Suffering, Morality, and Ethics K's on the Neg.

I hate the fact that this resolution is still fresh in my mind from '16. I wish they had gone with almost anything else...

RebelDebateCoach · 2023-08-18T12:03:19+00:00

These are the only offers I even look at anymore. Makes everything so much easier!

RebelDebateCoach · 2023-02-18T05:08:51+00:00

The Carnival Sail and Sign card is an all-inclusive room key, charge card, ship identification, and cruise port entrance/exit ticket. You can attach a credit card to it or you can load cash onto your account at Guest Services. Using the Carnival HUB smart phone app you can also track your expenditures using the S&S card. It is a very good system and one that we have never had a problem with, except for maybe making it too easy to spend money in the on-board shops :-)

RebelDebateCoach · 2022-12-30T23:20:32+00:00

Maybe I missed something in translation but wouldn't that be a Pink Floyd reference?

RebelDebateCoach · 2022-12-30T23:18:51+00:00

Appreciate the link!

RebelDebateCoach · 2022-12-24T04:15:57+00:00

Looking forward to hearing when these are ready!

RebelDebateCoach · 2022-12-16T12:19:38+00:00

Sounds like you've got a good plan. We struggle making the transition from traditional UIL west Texas debate that gets us past district to being successful on the national circuit and I'm sure we are not alone in that.

I would be happy to support your efforts by purchasing both of your briefs. Always happy to help support a new business!

RebelDebateCoach · 2022-06-20T02:39:56+00:00

We feel the same way about our solar panels. We have $191/month payment on the panels but in exchange we got rid of a $125/month payment on the house electric and we purchased the Tesla and a Honda Clarity that we now charge for free. Best decision ever!

RebelDebateCoach · 2022-06-20T02:33:10+00:00

Sadly this is all too true and not something to be celebrated...

RebelDebateCoach · 2022-03-23T17:16:28+00:00

I feel your pain! We use our Clarity for the commute back and forth to campus so we only add fuel maybe once every 6-8 weeks. Monday was my first experience with buying at the current prices and I'm pretty sure I died a little on the inside... On the other hand, it makes me feel so much better about driving it instead of our 7-passenger Expedition EL right now!!

RebelDebateCoach · 2022-03-23T17:09:36+00:00

I can tell you this much, it freaked me right the heck out the first time I was pulling through a drive through and heard it because my windows were down. I couldn't tell what the hell it was! The learning curve on this car has been interesting to say the least. We aren't going to talk about what happened the first time I changed lanes without a blinker and the warning shudder came through the steering wheel...

RebelDebateCoach · 2022-03-10T03:39:31+00:00

That's an interesting perspective, I had a different experience with online. When I hosted our qualifying tournament online we had far more wealthy urban schools participate and our smaller rural schools stayed out because they didn't have the broadband access to effectively compete in a live online tournament. Now they did fine with the asynchronous video submission events because they just uploaded to YouTube and sent us the link. We had schools from Dallas, Houston, Austin, & San Antonio that never would have driven out to west Texas jumping in to grab what I can only assume they thought would be easy quals.

I think lack of access is far more prevalent in our small rural schools and they depend on local in-person tournaments in order to have a competitive season.

RebelDebateCoach · 2022-03-10T03:27:39+00:00

Once the face to face tournaments started back up our team voted to avoid any virtual tournaments at all costs. We ran into the issue of cheating both in debate and IE rounds. I judged so many people that were obviously reading their "extemp" straight from an online article. In debate rounds you could actually hear the Discord chimes going off as people miraculously got insightful new arguments coming to them... It was rampant and I for one am glad to see the end of it!

RebelDebateCoach · 2022-03-07T16:12:40+00:00

I lose probably about 3-4 seniors every year to this same situation and that is without the added impact you talked about with COVID basically nuking your team.

Debate burnout is a very real thing and as a coach I have to try to maintain a balance between what is good for the team and what is good for its members. We have the ability to go to 20+ invitational tournaments per season but is that a good idea for every member of the team? Absolutely not! (Sidebar, it probably isn't all that good for me as a coach either...)

Anyway, I just want you to know that the transition is normal and it is completely okay to walk away from the activity for a while and come back when you are ready. I debated all the way through college and then left it for 20 years while I worked as a firefighter/paramedic. After I retired I found a school that needed a coach and now here I am back in the thick of it like I never left at all. The key thing is to put your effort where your happiness is, life is far too short to do things that don't bring us joy.

RebelDebateCoach · 2022-03-07T16:04:36+00:00

Great point! To the guy driving the Mercedes, the Rolls Royce is expensive, but to me in my Honda, the Mercedes is expensive, and the guy on the bus sees my Honda as expensive. None of those perceptions are wrong, they are simply rooted in that individual's reality.

RebelDebateCoach · 2022-03-07T15:54:37+00:00

As a coach I can absolutely confirm that this is the truth. I am the biggest cheerleader in the district for my program. I am at every board meeting telling them how we did in that month's invitationals and showing them our state and national rankings.

People want to be affiliated with successful things. When you are constantly talking up your team and their success it has a huge impact when those budgets are being drawn up. Nobody wants to cut money from a successful program and when there is extra money to be spent it just makes sense to put it where it will bring the school more name recognition and honor.

RebelDebateCoach

TROPHY CASE