With the board meeting set for next weekend, Ben and Drew spoke to two different programs to give perspective from both sides of the discussion about the competition format for next season. First, Ben and Drew are joined by coaches Beth Georgian and Matt Thornburg from the University of South Carolina Aiken. Beth and Matt discuss why they reached out to AMTA to ask for the 2022 season to be virtual, how their team operates with limited resources and several non-traditional students, and why they think AMTA should require COVID vaccines regardless of the competition format. Then Vice-President of External Affairs Bret Berry of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville joins the show to discuss why his program contacted AMTA and asked for the 2022 season to be in-person. Bret goes through their concerns of losing institutional knowledge if the 2022 season is virtual and how he thinks either way AMTA needs to provide guidance on how next season is going to look. ...
Drew and Ben are joined by Dan Peale of UVA Mock Trial for a discussion on his time at Virginia, the emotion of two consecutive second place finishes at NCT, his experience at Trial by Combat, and how he and his team are preparing for the first-ever One Last Time Tournament. Then Ben and Drew break down the OLT field and talk about some of the unique challenges they think competitors and teams will face in an online format. ...
Ben and Drew discuss everything that happened at the 2019 American Mock Trial Association (AMTA) Board of Directors meeting in Cincinatti, including a new pairing system for ORCS, several different proposals for changing our tournament structure, the new time limits for opening and closing statements, and the proposed rule to limit each program to one team at the National Championship Tournament. ...
