Thursday, January 18 – Only day of school this week. Most of the morning spent rescheduling the event tomorrow in light of the forecast. Emailing students and judges and making sure everyone is aware. Trying to determine how many students we will lose to scheduling conflicts next week.
Monday, January 22 – Arrive at school early, refreshed and ready to start the week. Only at 9:00 do I start to realize that I’m the only soul in the English hallway. Where the hell is everyone? I check the schedule. End-of-the-quarter planning day. How do you like that?
Tuesday, January 23 – the extemp student who couldn’t compete due to her trip to Massanutten contacts me – she’s free this weekend and wants in. Instead of extemp, though, I use her to fill in an impromptu entry that had a scheduling conflict. Sim also helps attain the talents of another theater student to help replace a poetry drop.
Wednesday, January 24 – Getting more judges to fill the outrageously large quota. Emailing and texting with people who are friends of friends or relatives, thanking them profusely for donating their time on Saturday.
Thursday, January 25 – During the club time, the original oratory girls work together in the fine arts hallway reciting their speeches and giving one another feedback while I monitor my juggling club. They didn’t know one another prior to entering this event, and it makes me happy to see them being so supportive of one another, one of the big positives of getting a big forensics program off the ground.
Of our fourteen entries, there are many I haven’t had a chance to coach. For some of them it’s because they work with Sim, who recruited them. But for a few of them, neither Sim nor I have coached them at all, and we’re relying on faith that they are actually rehearsing and will acquit themselves well on Saturday.
*
I have had experiences where this faith was misplaced. One year a student was signed up to perform a dramatic interpretation, but always missed practice, a different excuse each week, yet claimed he was getting it memorized. We get to the VHSL day and round one starts – ten minutes later the organizer finds me, says that one of my students is sick. It’s this boy, of course, complaining about how his stomach hurts and he can’t physically perform. His round has only three entries, so he would have advanced (and earned our team at least three points) even if he stood in front of the judges and mumbled a few words and sat back down. His withdrawal from the competition ended up costing us the team win. Not that I’m bitter about it.
Another year (maybe it was the same year?), I had a wild-eyed young man enter the prose interpretation category at the last minute, doing a performance of “The Tell-Tale Heart.” He had a vibe that I would describe as less than stable, this young man. Not a bad kid, per se, but the type of kid all teachers know by his first name. His intentions seemed earnest enough, though, so I let him join us. But because he hopped on board only a few days before the competition, I was never treated to his performance. From what I gathered, his interpretation of “The Tell-Tale Heart” involved a startling amount of shouting and screaming. He did not advance to super regionals.
*
At the end of the day Thursday, my oath-bound extemp student informs me that there are only two in her category. How can you know that, I ask? I don’t have access to that information as a coach. She takes out her laptop and toggles with her Tabroom account and shows me that, indeed, all the entries from all the schools are, inexplicably, visible to her.
Later that evening, I use this information to make some calculations. There are ten categories in VHSL forensics. For each category, first place wins their school 7 points; second place 5; third place 3. The school with the most points wins the region. At regional competitions it’s common for categories to go uncontested. By assembling such a large team, the math favors Woodgrove this Saturday. We have the most entries, at fourteen. However, another school is bringing eight, and if these students place first in their categories, they would win the region. Instead of a competition that is mathematically over before it starts, this will be an honorable win for whoever takes the region.
Friday, January 26 – During Dentime I round up four different performers and bring them to the auditorium for some last-minute tune ups. The flight attendant duo, in its third iteration of performers, is clicking well. The two dramatic interpretation performers work together on the stage. One student wants to switch her storytelling piece. Normally I wouldn’t allow a change at the last minute, but I green-light it for her, because this student is amazingly talented and a hard worker, the type who can go off-book with a script in one night.
Throughout the day, Sim barges into my room with updates about different judges and confirmation about details. I do the same unannounced interruptions of her class to confirm or clarify stuff.
The constant stress of adds and drops, transportation, rehearsals, excuses from kids, questions from parents, finding judges, all for a competition that is treated with blank ignorance by the vast majority of the population – it’s enough to make one a little tense. I worked with a fellow English teacher at Champe who was amazingly organized, detail-oriented, precise and Type-A. Also very kind and caring, but the former traits were the dominant features. After three years of co-sponsoring with me, she told me she was done, confessing what a hellish experience the whole thing was for her. Sim does not abide by the Type-A attitude.
In the evening I bake a double batch of brown butter chocolate-chip cookies. My boys help add the ingredients and get annoyed at the tediousness of the Cooks Illustrated recipe, which involves weighing ingredients and waiting for three minute intervals as you cream together the eggs and sugar. Baking these brings back memories of an original oratory student who placed at states with a speech that starts with a hook about browning butter.
Before going to bed, I check the entries on Tabroom. We have entrants in eight of the ten categories, no one dropping out at the last second, and more than enough judges. What could go wrong?
Saturday, January 27 – I wake up at 6:00. Practice banjo for thirty minutes and head out to Woodgrove on the deserted weekend highway. According to my wife, my three-year-old son John came into the room later that morning and asked, “Where’s Dada?” Dada’s got forensics, son. You’ll understand someday.
The bus-riding members of the team arrive punctually, except for the student who hit a deer with her VW bug. All is well, though: she’s ok, the car isn’t totaled, and the deer didn’t die, being immune to bug bites, apparently.
On the bus ride I somehow didn’t get motion sickness like I normally do. Sim and I chat about who might be hired as the new assistant principal.
Arriving at our destination, we encounter the Woodgrove Scholastic Bowl team – there are two different VHSL events being hosted at Dominion today. At registration I spot the head of the John Champe Scholastic Bowl Team. This is Michael Fama, aka Darth Fama to his enemies, a history teacher who started in the county the same year as me. A lover of the Yankees, graphic novels, and bad jokes, Fama was a weekly contributor to the Friday news show I ran at Champe my last year there. He has a swaggering confidence about his school’s team, which is ranked first in the region.
I thank the many judges who have been recruited to meet our quota imposed by the organizer. This includes my former student Andrew, who is pursuing a career in education and already subbing in Loudoun County. Sim treats Andrew like one of her own, and Andrew instinctively understands the way Sim operates. Also present to judge is Woodgrove theater teacher Ms. Pruzina and her two sons. A parent of a student and a friend of Sim’s are also present. The other school that is bringing a bunch of entries declined to bring their quota of judges. And there’s no penalty for this, just like Sim anticipated.
The judges’ lounge is packed. However, for logistical reasons that were equally easy to predict, many of these Woodgrove-provided judges can’t be used, because they would be judging Woodgrove students. To have so many of these good-hearted people donate their Saturdays only for them to just sit in the judges’ lounge most of the day shooting the breeze is embarrassing. I bring them a batch of my cookies at lunch, thank them profusely.
The father of one of the students parked his camper in the empty student lot and sets up a tailgating experience – hamburgers and hot dogs at lunch. It is the first tailgate I’ve ever been to in my life that I can recall.
*
During the lunch break a Scholastic Bowl coach walks up to me and says, “You have a brother, don’t you?” She went to college with Johnny. “I’ve been inside your house,” she informs me. I remember her only vaguely – my brother didn’t like sharing his friends. Coincidentally, she also went to Valley and had Sim as her AP Lit teacher. Sim tells me how it’s crazy that she could have taught my brother. I don’t understand how she thinks that’s possible.
*
Dominion has an architectural footprint pretty similar to Woodgrove. One difference is they have these big portraits of former students above the lockers, celebrating their academic achievements. “John Smith, class of 2015, perfect score on SAT Math and AP Calculus, National Merit Scholar, etc.”
When I am a principal, we will do the opposite. “Jane Doe, class of 2016, suspended twelve times, GPA of 1.2, etc.”
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When I entered the Original Oratory kids in Tabroom a few weeks ago, I was asked for the titles of the speeches. Since there were none, I gave their speeches titles. The students find that out in the first round, and are duly upset with me at the choices I made (“The Quiet Stillness of RNS”, “Heading Toward the Light”). I volunteer to revise the titles to whatever they want, but they insist on sticking with these titles, just to teach me a lesson.
*
The third round concludes at 1:30. We gather in the cafeteria for awards. Usually there is time for the coaches to look over the results and have a chance to protest, but they don’t do that for whatever reason.
The results are very good. Nearly every single Woodgrove student medals, with six of them winning first place in their category.
After all individual awards are handed out, the school winner is announced. This goes to Woodgrove. The kids have taken the Region 4C title with a total of 50 points. It is Woodgrove’s first forensics region team victory.
Most of the students didn’t realize that a team win was even in the cards – I never bothered to tell most of them, not wanting to add any additional pressure.
High-fives, handshakes, hugs. This is a moment to be savored. Never take these wins for granted. I’ve been in plenty of cafeterias at the end of a long Saturday while other schools did all the celebrating.
Ms. Pruzina calls us to the trophy case outside the cafeteria to take photos. As we give a mighty cheer and flash the Woodgrove “W” with our outstretched hands, hooting and cheering, the door to the library opens. An irate lady stomps out. “Excuse me!” she screams, “there is an event that is still taking place! You need to remove yourself from this area immediately!”
We apologize and do as she instructs.
The team trophy is passed around on the bus ride back to Western Loudoun. Sim and I sit in the back with the students, discussing the judges’ feedback that is now visible on Tabroom, talking about the competition that awaits at super regionals, wondering how we’re going to transport the team all the way down to Lynchburg.
