A Tale of Two Academic Teams

Chapter 22: The Dukes of Visits

That will show these Venomous Agendas! I gave them a losing ballot which, on the surface, may seem like a breach of topicality, but really, it's payback for the HSNCT, where their second speaker accused me of spreading in a tight playoff game! Hector muses, while leaving the game room assigned to him for round 4.

As the Venomous Agendas PF pair exit the school where the public forum preliminaries take place, they ask Rebecca and Chantal for updates on their results. At the main exit of the school, they run into a familiar face from early in their high school stay:

"Florence!" an enthusiastic Sadie rushes out to her, opening her arms as she gets closer to Flo.

"Sadie!" Florence answers back. "Was this first day of competition rough for you?"

"It is harder than regular season; after all, we are playing at Nats. We have six winning ballots. That said, who hired you to judge here?" Sadie asks Florence.

"Strake Jesuit. They had cash and were willing to pay all my travel expenses, but they had a medical emergency which prevented one of their original judges from judging"

While I can't judge Strake Jesuit, nor Venomous Agendas games, in the games I've been judging, sometimes I can't help myself but wonder how my high school self would have played that particular game. I was good enough to play at Nats, I just didn't have a good first speaker. But I guess, playing for the Rouge et Or made me not regret my high school debating career. The Quebec collegiate circuit is decent considering there is next to no high school circuit there, Florence muses, while judging games at this tournament gives her pause.

"How is Laval as a debate school?" Joe asks Florence.

"As a debate school, Laval is a parliamentary school. No policy there. I regret nothing about my choice to attend Laval and going from public forum to parli wasn't too hard. However, as a debate school, Laval is much stronger in French than in English" Florence explains to the pair.

"It was nice talking to you, but we have to go now" Sadie answers them.

Now that the PF pair is in the car Sadie's parents rented, her parents make a suggestion to them before they go back to the hotel room they rented for the tournament's duration.

"What about we visit Duke tonight? After all, college application season is just a few months away for the juniors on the team" Sadie's father asks the puffers.

"We need to let the policy team know, too. They, too, might be interested but they are still in play" Sadie adds. "What about we meet at the place where policy plays its games, and the coach returns to the hotel without us"

Sadie then texts Rebecca, while she was in the middle of their game. "Once your game ends, we are going to visit Duke" And later, Chantal: "We need to pick up our policy players and go visit Duke together. They are going to apply to college in Fall, too, once at Duke we meet up at the chapel"

She attempts to remember what credentials they had, but she had little indication beyond 11 of the 12 VA debaters excelling in language arts and social science; the OO player was the most academically inconsistent VA debater. Duke might be realistic to me and maybe Joe provided we break, but I'm not sold on the policy players. It's too early for Chantal but she gives me the feeling she's at least as smart as Flo.

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But since the PF pair would arrive in Durham before the other 3 players would, they have the opportunity to check out restaurants near Duke's campus before they start their visit in earnest. About forty-five minutes later, they get seated at a restaurant near Duke's campus, and across the counter from them is DCC's player at Nats, sitting with his coach, wearing DCC's student uniform.