IHSA

IHSA Advisory Committee Meeting Minutes - 2006-07

Scholastic Bowl Advisory Committee

April 30, 2007

REVISED MINUTES OF THE IHSA SCHOLASTIC BOWL ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING

The IHSA Scholastic Bowl Advisory Committee met at the IHSA Office, Bloomington, Illinois on Monday, April 30, 2007, beginning at 10:00 a.m. Committee Members present were: Thomas Egan, Coach, Park Ridge (Maine South); Susan Martin, Coach Wheaton (North); Cynthia Wierzba, Coach, Farmington (H.S).; Jeannine Johnson, Coach, Macon (Meridian); Jeff Bryan, Principal, Monmouth (Roseville); Ron McGraw, IHSA Assistant Executive Director, Rob Grierson, Moderator Coordinator; David Reinstein, Coach, Winnetka (New Trier) and current President of the IHSSBCA
Committee members not in attendance: Joyce Crews, Coach, Anna (Jonesboro); Afina Lockhart, Chicago Public Schools

TERMS AND CONDITIONS RECOMMENDATIONS:

1. Item II-D - Move the State Finals from Saturday to Friday
Recommendation: Beginning next year in 2008 the Scholastic Bowl State Finals will be moved to Friday instead of Saturday. The IHSA Board has approved this move and the Scholastic Bowl Advisory supported the move by a vote of 4 to 0 with one abstention.

Rationale: Due to the Class AA Boy’s Basketball State Finals conducted on the same weekend housing for competing schools is difficult to guarantee. By moving the event to Friday the IHSA Administrator will be able to acquire and guarantee housing on Thursday night for those schools making the request.

Approved

2. Item V. – Tournament Assignments and Seeding Meetings

Recommendation: Assistant Executive Director, Ron McGraw will request the IHSA Board revise the current language contained in Policy 19. Grouping and Seeding State Tournament Series. Current language includes the word Activities in the section titled Guideline for Seeding for Bracketed Team Sports and Activities. It will be recommended to strike the word Activities from that title.

Rationale: Scholastic Bowl has adhered to the provisions in this policy because Scholastic Bowl starts its state series as a bracketed team tournament. However, it is not a pure bracketed team tournament such as basketball. Therefore, it is being recommended that Scholastic Bowl should not be required to follow the guidelines set forth in this policy. It is not practical to follow these guidelines completely.

It was recommended by the advisory committee to generally eliminate the need to establish sub-sectionals. Sub-sectionals may be developed if it helps reduce excess travel. At the seeding meetings (still voluntary) 8 teams will be seeded and regional hosts will be identified. These host schools will be reported to the IHSA the day following the seeding meeting. The host opportunity will be offered to the top 4 seeds first and then to the lower seeds and then to any school until 4 sites are obtained. The coaches at a sectional seed meeting can suggest to the IHSA Administrator to award a regional to a school lower in the list of seeds if it makes more sense to do so geographically.

This motion passed 5-0

Approved

3. VI-C

Recommendation: In the case of Scholastic Bowl that means the regional level will be seeded, and it is not allowed to reseed at the sectional level (as Scholastic Bowl has essentially done in the past).

Rationale: There is no reason to include this comment about the past.

Approved

4. VI-F

Recommendation: Modify the time schedule for the State Finals as follows:

SCHOLASTIC BOWL STATE FINALS SCHEDULE FOR 07-08

8:00 a.m.                      Schools may begin check-in
9:30 a.m.                      Opening Ceremonies
10:00-11:10                 First Round of Preliminary Pool Play
11:25-12:35                 Second Round of Preliminary Pool Play
12:35-1:35                   Lunch
1:35-2:45                     Third Round of Preliminary Pool Play
3:00-4:15                     Championship and Consolation Rounds
4:15-5:00                     Awards (immediately following the conclusion of the Championship and Consolation Round)

Approved

5. VIII-I-1

Recommendation: Time: Each team present at the host site should be at their match location at least five (5) minutes before the match is scheduled to begin. A team that is not present when the round is scheduled to begin shall forfeit its match. A team arriving at a host site and their match location after the scheduled start time for the match, without calling ahead, shall forfeit all its matches that day. If a team calls ahead to notify the host of the delay, the start time can be moved to accommodate the delay, but never by more than 45 minutes.

Rationale: The current forfeit rule is reasonable once all schools have arrived, and for subsequent matches on that day. However, there has been no guidance for hosts when dealing with weather and transportation delays. The proposed rule provides a reasonable method for dealing with transportation delays in a consistent manner.

Approved

6. VIII-M-3

Recommendation: Multiple choice toss-up and bonus questions will not be permitted except in the case of vocabulary (analogy) toss-up questions. For such multiple-choice questions, any verbal response that indicates one of the choices will be acceptable. Multiple choice bonus questions will not be permitted except in the case where the setup enumerates a list of potential word-choice answers (in order to limit the range of possible answers) and there is not a one-for-one matching correspondence between the choices and the bonus parts.

Rationale: In rare situations, question writers may decide that it is better to limit the range of possible answers to bonus parts rather than try to foresee all possible variations and alternatives to the desired answers.

Approved

7. VIII-M-10 and renumber, or VIII-M-15

Recommendation: Within the first few words or within the first clue, toss-up questions should uniquely identify what is being asked (by using a pronoun, or a phrase such as "identify the person" or "name the book"). Avoid starting toss-up questions with statements containing superfluous information that will cue a knowledgeable player to buzz in early with an applicable, germane, but incorrect answer. In no case should a toss-up begin by heading in one direction, then change direction and ask a completely different question.

Rationale: This will help to reduce or eliminate bad questions, known as "hoses," from the IHSA State Series.

Approved

8. VIII-O-1

Recommendation: Restore "Health" as a sub-topic under Science, not bold.

Rationale: This sub-topic was inadvertently dropped between the 2004-05 and 2005-06 Terms & Conditions.

Approved

9. VIII-O-4

Recommendation: Split "Literature" and combine it with "Mythology" as follows:
"US Literature," "British Literature," and "World Literature and Mythology," all bold.

Rationale: This will result in more literature questions overall and fewer questions from the other sub-topics.

Approved

10. VIII-O-4

Recommendation: Move the sub-category "Journalism" from "Language Arts" to "Miscellaneous."

Rationale: Journalism questions, mostly related to TV/radio/Internet, are better suited for Miscellaneous.

Approved

PROPOSED CHANGES TO THE RULE BOOK AND CASE BOOK:

The following changes to the Scholastic Bowl Terms and Conditions, Rule Book and Case Book are being recommended by the advisory committee (a rationale follows each proposal):

This motion passed 5-0

Rules

11. 4-A-3f

Notification to the moderator that an opponent's answer was correct, or that their own answer was incorrect.

Approved

12. 4-I-2a

A player may inform the moderator at any time, and without triggering the lockout system, of their belief that an opponent's answer which was ruled incorrect was in their opinion correct or that their own answer which was ruled correct was in their opinion incorrect, as a gesture of good sportsmanship. This, in effect, initiates a review of the moderator's decision.

Rationale: This is the mirror of the sportsmanship display that was intended when the rules were first written.

Approved

13. 4-B-8

If a required form or constraint for an answer is specified in the question, answers in a different form should be ruled incorrect with no prompting, unless the alternative form is specified as "accept also" along with the answer on the question set. If the answer is given after an early buzz, before the required form or constraint is specified, and it meets the intent of the entire question and the answer given is justifiably equivalent to the printed answer but does not match the required form or constraint (e.g. decimal instead of fraction, noun instead of adjective, singular instead of plural, etc), then it should be ruled correct.

Rationale: As originally written last year, this rule opened up the possibility that a remotely relevant but completely wrong answer could be appealed and judged correct. This re-worded rule limits the acceptable answers to those that are "justifiably equivalent" to the printed answer. The intent of the rule is to benefit a knowledgeable player who buzzes in early from having an equivalent answer judged wrong when the desired form or constraint is specified late in the question – not protection from bad questions, known as "hoses."

Approved

14. 4-C-2

Additional Correct Information: If, on an early buzz, prior to a clear specification of what is being asked, a player gives additional correct information that pertains to the correct answer, without pause, up to a total of two pieces of information (i.e. the correct answer and one other piece of information), the answer will be ruled correct. If a player gives additional correct information that has no direct bearing on the question or the answer, or a player includes additional incorrect information the answer will be ruled incorrect. If the moderator is in doubt if any additional information is correct, they may choose to consult match personnel in the room, coaches, or other resources in the room within a reasonable amount of time. In any case, the moderator's decision must be rendered quickly. This rule may apply to, but is not limited to, creator/creation situations such as those that arise with authors, artists, and scientists. If a required form or constraint for an answer is specified in the question, answers in a different form should be ruled incorrect with no prompting, unless the alternative form is specified as "accept also" along with the answer on the question set. If the answer is given after an early buzz, before the required form or constraint is specified, and it meets the intent of the entire question but does not match the required form or constraint then it should be ruled correct. Giving extra information that does not meet the required form or constraint, once that form or constraint has been heard, whether given first or second, should always result in an incorrect ruling. Whether on an early buzz or not, giving common-sense extra information, such as additional geographic specificity, subtitles, additional specificity for a person's name, additional designations for an act, law, battle, or other historical event, and so on, should – if the extra information is deemed factual – always be ruled correct. Adding extra information that was given in the question to a correct answer should never result in an incorrect ruling.

Rationale: This rule works in harmony with Rule 4-B-8. While we want to allow a knowledgeable player to make an intelligent guess on an early buzz and not be penalized for a minor difference in their answer, we at the same time do not want to permit "fishing" or random guessing after the first few words of a question. On the other hand, once the question specifies what is being asked for, or a required form or constraint, we must not allow a player hide an obviously wrong first answer by then also giving the more correct answer, even if in the same breath. Finally, we don't want to ever penalize a player for providing extra common-sense information – such as Chicago, Illinois or Paris, France or Civil Rights Act of 1964 or King Edward VI of England or Hawthorne's The Great Stone Face and Other Tales of the White Mountains or Battle of Hastings 1066 – nor do we want to penalize a player for repeating information from the question along with a correct answer.

Approved

15. 4-I-1e

No more than two three (3) minutes shall be allowed for any appeal from start to decision.

Rationale: Typo – The number was changed from (2) to (3) last year, but the word "two" was not changed.

Approved

ADMINISTRATIVE RECOMMENDATIONS

Masonic State Tournament Clarification: The Masonic State Tournament has been determined to be one tournament (conducted over more than one day). Consequently it is not necessary to use two of the 18 available dates if a school qualifies on to the finals of that tournament.

Request the assistance of Regional and Sectional hosts in collecting evaluations of moderators: The host schools will be asked to distribute and then collect from coaches cards used to evaluate the moderators. The moderators will not see these cards directly but a summary may be available at a later time. This process is intended to provide feedback to the host schools relative to moderator’s performance and as a tool to improve the skills of moderators across the state.

ITEMS OF GENERAL DISCUSSION

The committee discussed the following topics:

*Moving Regionals to a day other than Tuesday to avoid the conflict of basketball super sectional- games. Regionals were moved of Monday this year to avoid the conflict of Casmir Pulaski Day.
*Season Limitations – 5 on 5 definition of a scholastic bowl contest
*Out of season contests – what is legal/illegal?
*Moving the State Finals to the new Grand Ballroom in the Civic Center
*New hotel for state qualifying schools – the New Embassy Suites
*Leaving the seeding meetings on Wednesday