IHSA Sectional SHOCKS!

[Original]

Jayman, you should change your username to speechguru.

And I do agree with the sporadic ranking. However, a good performer is able to grab the audience with charisma and speaking ability, no matter if the audience is familiar with speech or not (which I'm pretty sure most of the judges are). The ranks may be all over the place, but that could be for a variety of reasons. Some pieces work well with younger judges, some work well with females/males, some work well with judges of different races, but none of this is in anyone's control.

To Ieader, that has been happening all season. People have gone 1 2 7 and won tournaments at invitationals. It isn't just confined to sectionals. And ranking someone down because of their topic/piece is a legitimate thing. If you have a DI about drinking a glass of water and burping, but it's performed well, you can't expect to make it to state. Same thing with written events, your topic and writing ability has a great deal to do with how well you will do. When it comes down to a tough round and all of the performers are very talented, as it often does with sectionals, people need to look to something else for ranking.

There isn't an event where there's no room for subjectivity. For example, someone judging prose may see a piece about rape, and possibly they were abused. They could relate and it was well performed so they got the performer got the one. Then another judge, offended by a scene in the piece, could give them a 6. Speech in general is subjective, and I don't think that will ever change.

[harfyn]

There's no way to have "fair" judging. You just need thicker skin. This happens all the time. It's speech. There's no way to make it objective. No matter what happens, weird stuff could happen, don't whine about it. I thought the judging was perfectly fair, I'm going to state. You think it wasn't fair, you aren't. That's just how it is for everyone. No one "deserves" to be there any more than any other person, no matter how much one person loves their performance. If judges thought differently, they thought differently, and there's no use complaining about what can't be changed. Look at the positive stuff. Good competitors don't whine about judges, they fix themselves, and do better next year. Or, they learn how to be a graceful loser, and move past the fact that they didn't make it. You can only change stuff that is going to happen, do not perseverate on what already did.

[mss534]

DI at the Reavis Sectional was just awful. Not a single one of those pieces deserved to make it. Those judges had no idea what they were doing and I'm angry. It killed me to see Liz Salim. I've mentioned her before and I meant it when I said that she is amazing. Her DI was an actual DI. The ones that made it to State were terrible. I don't care what you say, this is my opinion. The state of IL is missing out on one of the greatest DIs ever. I really hope she visits this forum and reads this. I wanted to see her win State so badly.

Um, hi there. I'm Liz and I wanted to thank you for saying that you wished to see me at state. Lord knows I wished the same thing. Haha. But, I'm very happy for my competitors and I'm glad that they get the chance to rock state. Would you mind letting me know who you are or tell me what tournament we met at? I feel awful for not knowing who you are.

Good luck to everyone else! I'm rootin' for yah guys!