Labor Topic Awards + Announcement

We are back one last time to send off the Labor Topic. I asked for submissions to help not miss anything + potentially unearth funny stuff + see what people's initial reactions were.

That was not a poll and this here blog is not a democracy - opinions below are ultimately my own.

I'm Sick of You Award

For most head to head matchups:

1st - Kansas LS vs Michigan BP - 8!

2nd - Gtown AC vs Michigan BP - 7

3rd - CSU Long Beach MO vs Emory GS - 7

4th - Iowa AP vs Kansas OW - 6

5th - Emory GS vs Michigan BP - 6

Most Affirmatives Read

Covered in NDT Musings:

1st - Gtown AC - 13!

2nd - Michigan BP - 11

No Doubt Award

For most unanimous decisions throughout the year:

1st - Emory GS - 22 (out of 29 panels)

2nd - Kansas LS - 19 (out of 29 panels)

3rd - Michigan BP - 14 (out of 25 panels)

4th - MSU GL - 14 (out of 18 panels)

5th - NYU MS - 13 (out of 14 panels)

Literacy Award

To all the people who filled out the awards survey but didn't figure out they did not have to respond to every question.

Dummies.

5-4 Award

Congratulations to Kansas SS for winning CEDA on a 5-4 decision. Only other 5-4 decision I show in the database is CEDA 2021 where Texas DW (Het Desai and Zachary Watts) beat UCO CH (Grant Colquitt and Zach Huffman) on a 5-4. Both winners were negative. The rarest ballot count is now 7-2. CEDA 2005 Berkeley NW (Stacey Nathan and Craig Wickersham) on the negative defeated Dartmouth CS (Kathryn Clark and Brian Smith).

EDIT - breaking news, 2013 was also a 5-4. Tabroom did not have elim results posted for that CEDA so I know who won but not a lot of information beyond that.

Paradigm of the Year (complimentary)

David Sposito was mentioned three times, but no idea why. Philosophy has no sauce, sorry.

I am obviously not going to go dumpster diving into judge philosophies when I no longer fill out pref sheets. This award will not be given.

Take a Seat Award

For the judges who sat the most:

1st - Brian DeLong - 6 out of 16 panels

2nd - Mikaela Malsin - 6 out of 20 panels

3rd - Henry Mitchell - 5 out of 13 panels

4th - Alex Mojica and Devane Murphy - 5 out of 14 panels

The Bootstraps Award

For Hardest Working Small Program:

Honorable mentions - Macalester, CSU Long Beach, Georgia and Wyoming.

Cal Berkeley - they have two Fleming's coaching them to make it extra challenging...

Western Kentucky - ramping up from 2 tournaments to 5 tournaments to 10 tournaments this year.

The Rotating Door Award

To the debaters that competed with the most partners:

5 partners - Asher Neal and Levi Deangelis from Missouri St. Including one another and many others.

6 partners - Chase Blaser - Kansas. Great name, many partners.

The Trophy Award

The award for teams that won trophies on Labor. Caring is cool, winning tournaments is fun and and it is harder than it looks. Here is everyone (I am pretty sure) who won a tournament:

Best First Year Out Judge

The folks with multiple shout outs were:

Graham "I never vote affirmative" Revare

Alex "I sit like a veteran debate coach" Mojica

Jacob Wilkus. He records debates and thinks conditionality is real. A hero on many fronts that is above roasting.

Biggest Baby Award

First - thanks for reading.

Second -

Notorious Card

Everybody said every flavor of Handler and at a glance I did not know what that was, so how notorious could it be? Turns out that was the federal workers aff, so granted.

Shout out - Substantial is 50% - Comptroller General 79. Got mentioned a few times too.

League Pass Favorite Team

Multiple people answering they don't know what this was, see above on that.

A team that is a fun/enjoyable watch. You can only watch one elim, who are you going to pick?

I will say Long Beach was drawing big crowds on NDT Monday. Unclear if that pattern held throughout the year. Kansas LS seemed to be able to draw a crowd too.

Emory GS was mentioned the most among the people who maybe knew what I was talking about with this one.

Best Tournament Host

Wake Forest (yawn) and Emory were mentioned most. I already went on the record about the food situation at Wake. Didn't personally go to Emory this year. I thought Northwestern was solid and Kentucky tournament wise I had notes, but do enjoy Lexington over Winston Salem always.

Not having to care about BK defining the rules of the Georgetown tournament until 12 hours prior was fun for me.

I did enjoy my time in Houston as well.

Let's give it to Emory, they don't have enough wins this year yet. Good job Emory.

Ethical Hooper Award

Zach "Mad Dog" Willingham?

Zach "Employment Law" Willingham?

Kentucky GS?

"Most obvious choice is Harvard DS"

Iowa EW got multiple mentions. Overwhelmingly Afropessimism 2NRs and this funny note on their wiki - "good debate, goats! We will never pref "Mike Harrington" again." I like that kind of editorial innovation on rounds.

I think what pushes it over the edge for me in Kansas OW's direction is the "Ban Unions CP." No nobler path than literal opposite of the resolution.

Most Overused Phrase(s) in Judge Philosophies

Deep cut for the olds - "A lot of my opinions come from ___ (insert person no one's ever heard of nor will ever hear of)"

Very specific cut - Repko says germane too much

Wildly incorrect response - "The Burden of Proof precedes the Burden of Rejoinder" How many people could possibly say this??

Actual most mentioned and the apparent winner - Tech over Truth in all varieties.

Best 1NC vs a new affirmative award

My overwhelming bias for this award requires the following

• the affirmative requires deeper research to predict. So for example, even if it happened after the first tournament and the version a team read was good, it is hard for a debate about Ag workers to win this award because that is too easy to predict.
• The negative would need to read something specific about the affirmative in question
• Barring something specific, the negative would have to read a new argument. Preferably with some evidence at some point that is in the area of the affirmative.

The contenders:

• Michigan BP (Bankruptcy) vs Emory GS. Emory actually reads cards that the plan would be bad.
• MSU GL vs NU LR. NU had turns out about nuclear power ready, but seemed like climate holdovers.
• Gtown AC vs Michigan BE. Georgetown talks about God and really steps in it.

If Michigan SS read cards about space when going for coregulation CP vs MSU in the NDT quarters that would be noteworthy as well.

Didn't really care about the 1NCs when affirmative teams broke automation or AI or surveillance piles throughout the year.

Beating a new affirmative on topicality will receive no praise on these pages.

I thought that Michigan BE 1NC was the funniest and it got the job done. Congrats!

Rookie Director of the Year Award

Have some issues with T-Rookie. Kentucky ball knowers are aware that Chad Meadows is not a rookie and even in NDT/CEDA circuit debating Western Kentucky is not a rookie.

Same can be said for Beau Larsen and Macalester. I believe this was the third year in a row they cleared at the NDT for example.

Derek Hilligoss, Director of Samford, wins! Shout out David Rooney at Wyoming and maybe Nick Fleming at Berkeley (rookie? not sure). Keeping these programs attending tournaments is essential for debate to thrive.

Best Politics DA's

First question - was this a good Midterms year? Here are the years there were midterm elections and the topic since I've participated in college debate:

2010 - Increase Legal Immigration/Visas - Dem controlled Congress. This ended up being a GOP landslide in the House BUT you could say Dems good or GOP good at the time. This was my first go, but it seemed pretty good.

2014 - Legalization - GOP House and Dem Senate. This one had a fun wrinkle because we tried to let the Aff be the states (and failed mostly) but you could put the plan on a referendum and read midterms as a net benefit. GOP ended up flipping the Senate. You had to say GOP Good. This was also when Trade Promotion Authority was a thing so that was the more popular politics option at the time.

2018 - Executive Power - GOP House and Senate. Uniqueness was Dems win House. Impacts were just Dems can check Trump if they win anything. Was never quite tracking how midterms was a net benefit to the ESR CP. This one was nothing to write home about

2022 - Personhood - Democrats controlled the House and the Senate. GOP flips the House. I wasn't around for this topic. Clicking on some wiki's real quick, no one even bothered?? So I guess this one was the worst.

So I guess "good Midterms" is hard to come by. I thought at the first few tournaments it was ok and got progressively worse as the topic continued.

Next question - was there a good weekend where all the stars aligned for the agenda DA? The answer I believe is - not really. Sorry Shutdown DA or whatever.

Lastly - Gray Wolves

Best K Cards/Docs of the Year

Shoutout to the people who chimed in and did it very specifically, appreciate that.

What's in a K card?

• Specificity - including actually clocking what the other side is saying not just being in the ballpark or adjacent.
• Directness - some cards seem to summarize what you want answered but the author doesn't always land the plane.
• Variety of supporting evidence for claims.
• Clarity. Can a Baudrillard card ever actually be highlighted in a category like this?
• Implication/impacting is always nice.

This blog and other people have enjoyed Wyoming K stuff (although their disclosure practices are wanting, only 1NCs etc.) They tried to shotgun the first 27 card (Valdez 27) which is funny because this text was probably finalized in 2025 and read aloud in 2026 but cited 2027. Who knows what fresh horrors this author will not be able to price in.

That card and angle about core vs periphery was one of the strongest ways I saw to attack unions and is a very strong way to go about the Cap K.

People shouted out Kansas and the Complicity K which is funny because it is a Vox article. It hit a lot harder in 2017 when everyone was libbing out.

The other main one that got mentions was Sorentino 24 wages of blackness, attributed mainly to CSU Long Beach. Interesting edition to Antiblackness vs Capitalism to be sure. Underexplored in the current meta because one side would have to defend notions of class consciousness and class solidarity. Don't think policy affirmatives really took up that angle to defeat K's (discrete impact scenarios from stuff like federal workers, framework etc.)

The final bow - who read the best Cap K cards? People say Kansas and Emory. Kudos to them.

The thing about critical cards on both sides - you can keep digging and find cards that are just nutty. You know you found the S tier stuff when you think to yourself "I cannot believe this author is going this far this clearly and specifically" That's the dream.

Worst Idea of the Year Award

You thought I was gonna say Elim Challenges, but that idea is ok generally, the backlash was all BK form K's.

We have a late entry but it is a runaway winner:

"Unlike an AI, I am influenced by pathos" is killing me. The best case scenario is someone inevitably saying something like and we all gently but firmly explain why this is incredibly stupid in both the short and long term with the plethora of arguments available.

But tar and feathering is not entirely unreasonable as well.

Funniest Cards

These are submissions verbatim:

"Miller 9. See KU T Substanital Documents "Federal circuit precedent No reasonable person could ever interpret the term "substantially" less than half".

"Those cards NU LR read in Gonzaga elims that were old af"

"Georgetown card from 1980s"

"cards aren't funny" - graham revare"

"Pope Leo Votes aff 1891 or wtvr"

Northwestern's card from a furry cited above was also mentioned

Most Unhelpful Card Edit

Zoinks. Incorrect metaphor, wrong part of the body and more ableism than the original.

Best Tags

Honorable mentions to:

• every wolf death rends the soul
• Businesses yearn for stability
• Emory trying to make jokes in the baseball and teacher affs at the NDT

But the only winner is:

Worst Tags

"Everything in an Emory doc" Comment didn't age well!

"Employees only blow when they can bargain" WRONG

Most people just said cards tagged Extinction, which is fine, but not very funny.

I would say caps risk is much more offensive.

I would say tag writing is mostly fine or uninspired but not actively bad. Bigger fish to fry.

Wiki and Email Award

Shoutout to all the teams that have an entry on their wiki for each round they participated in + all the cards they read are in those entries, not just first speeches. You are the true lifeblood of the activity. It is simple to do this but the fact that nowhere near everyone does (or does so in a timely fashion) means you deserve to be honored for your contribution.

People tried to stuff the ballot box for Ike Song here, but I am not buying it.

If you can demonstrate that all your debates were on the wiki and debatedocs (this feels like a 1% accomplishment) I will give that partnership a fabulous prize.

Throw debatedocs on the chain, email Truf to get access to the group, update the wiki during decision time. So easy, so simple, not surveillance, even if want to "worst guy you know makes a point" me, you know I am right. Debate can only thrive if it is easy to figure out what happened in debates.

Partnership with Greatest Height Differential 

This award gets the award for being most like a high school yearbook BUT

Kentucky GS wins. Sorry Emory GR, Emory RY, Kansas OW and NU AP. Better luck next time.

Theory Award

Certainly seems like Emory GS in a runaway. Maybe this is a counting stat based on being in the most debates.

Stats Questions from Readers

Most questions assumed I had coded the content of each debate in a searchable way. For example "how many times was polycrisis said as an impact" I do not have the answer to that question. Frequency of subjects in debates is more of a Truf thing.

Questions I could actually answer:

Who sits the most (all time) -

"Best speaker points for a debater all time adjusted to the yearly median points"

Here is a real way to answer that question taking into account debate flirted with a 100 point scale there for a minute.

Lopsided Aff and Neg teams was either obvious/mean OR you set the minimum debates high enough to make it not interesting.

Most walkovers of all time

By partnership (benefited):

By debater (benefited):

Most walked over partnerships:

Most walked over debaters:

There is a chance the robot answered this wrong, but this looks reasonable.

Award Suggestions from Readers

"I think Rose Larson deserves the most flexible K debater award. A 2N willing to go for moral skepiticsm, T, the Cap K, topic counterplans, process, ADA tournament rules, was prepared to go for Midterms in prelims of the ADA, psychoanalysis, and imperialism is both impressive and also unmatched this year IMO."

"Reuinion tour award for John Marshall debating at 1 tournament and causing chaos"

"walkover warriors award to michigan ES" "Shetty deserves an award for the walkover king. Cyrus no longer is eligibile after the ADA."

"Best performance in a 1AC - UTD DD"

"Most pleasant to flow - Rose Larson" (Clearest speaker is a good one, should have thought of that one).

Toxic suggestions - longest postround, most sheets in the 1NC. NEXT

Most times ridiculed by me...no frontrunner immediately comes to mind, but I am sure the targets of ridicule know better than me.

Most flexible team - if we define this as a team willing to read a plan and no plan and a DA and a K and maybe T-USFG as well...I think the list is Michigan BL and Georgetown LN and...I am not sure other teams qualify but I am sure people will let me know.

Breakout Performances

Combining a bunch of the categories that were basically this.

Here are the top 5 upsets based on Elo from fifth to first:

Fifth - ADA - Round 6 - Western Kentucky FN (1686) vs Gtown AC (2065) - +379

Fourth - ADA - Round 3 - Western Kentucky CK (1580) vs NU LR (1970) - +390

Third - Georgetown - Doubles - Emory GS (2231) vs Kansas AU (1816) - +415

Second - Wake - Round 3 - Texas GS (1439) vs Kansas HP (1869) - +430

First - ADA - Round 2 - CSU Long Beach MO (2049) vs Western Kentucky CK (1580) - +469

Here are my winners:

Kansas LS at Wake - the only situation where a team beat Emory GS and Michigan BP in the same elim bracket to win the tournament (that last part matters in a second). They also beat Michigan SS who would go on to to have a killer second semester.

Western Kentucky CK at ADA - two of the biggest upsets of the year + the best tournament performance (as a partnership and squad) that Western Kentucky has had to date.

Texas FL at the NDT - 3-3 into 4-3 into pulled up to debate Kansas LS round 8. Wins round 8. No time to lose. Debate Michigan ES in the doubles. Pull off the 2nd biggest upset of the doubles. Lose on a 3-2 in the Octafinals. Electric stuff.

They join a list of six UT-Austin teams to make it to Monday of the NDT. Shoutout Texas AM (Sara Apel and Alex More) for making it to semifinals in 2005. You probably know them best from being included in that NDT documentary for approximately 20 seconds.

Shoutout Texas GM (Jishnu Guha-Majumdar & Flynn Makuch) for making it to octafinals in 2013. They mostly beat my illiterate ass on K stuff (but sometimes they didn't!).

Lindsay was in one of the last labs I led (people never think I remember, but I mostly do). Believe this is a junior/frosh partnership so excited to see what happens if/when they return!

EDIT - Lindsay is a senior turns out, congrats on impressive final run!

Kansas AU at Georgetown - this was the only other time someone managed to knock off Emory GS and Michigan BP in the same elim bracket. Won both on the negative. The third and 15th biggest upset according to Elo (but I assume the 2nd win was watered down by the first win). The fact that they were challenged by Michigan (and maybe the last time a challenge bracket occurs, who knows) and then won is just too good.

Season Recap + What's Next

Happy I had the opportunity to hang out with you all again in person. Happy that I got to judge and talk to debaters trying to rise to the top and debaters earlier in their college debate journey.

Happy to see the people I debated against, I judged and that I coached against stay in the activity and create things for the next generation. Happy to spitball about the future.

Happy that collegedebateresults exists. College debate should have nicer shit. Creating that was a very tiny example of how we can just do things. I will keep updating it with new tournaments and fixing errors.

Happy to ruffle some feathers. Sorry this shit don't hit for everybody. Not trying to devalue anyone's efforts of course. I been on the record about my love of the game and its players. Nothing is stopping anybody else from getting in front of a keyboard. In fact someone might have already encouraged it:

Here is the thing - I am having a baby in November. I am not going to be able to attend in person tournaments the same way I did this school year.

I felt strongly I needed to be an active participant to write about college debate. For this year that meant showing up in-person to the thing I found valuable - in person college tournaments that get people to use their actual brains.

Next season, if I am a participant, it would need to be different. If anyone wants a remote card cutter and coach and possible online judge, we can talk. I will give you a good deal, I promise.

I am in it for the love of the game.

Good season, everybody.