Band, Orchestra, and Theatre should not be given Varsity Letters

Seeing the opponent present the stock issues of CX debate fills me with a sort of nostalgic joy. Thank you for that. I'll first finish up with the arguments, then I'll hit stock issues.ArgumentationThe opponent's unintentional concession of the debate is found in his final remarks before stock issues. He states that there is an instance in which my claims are true and that this does occasionally happen. As such, I have upheld my burden by showing the opponent has not proved his case, since it fails to hedge against the "edge cases" of schools with poor sports programs. In this, I have technically won. Beyond that, the scenario in which "a varsity team requires weak, unmotivated players in order to be a full team" happens far more often than the opponent would like to admit. It's time for some math. We'll make some reasonable assumptions, then see what that mathematically implies for small schools. If we are to award a VL based upon effort, it makes sense that only people who put in above average effort would qualify. 50% of people are above average, by definition. Let's further assume that the work put in needs to be "significantly" above average. We'll say that significantly refers to one standard deviation above average. This puts the people deserving of an award at 30%.Let us assume that 40% of boys in a high school are interested in playing football and that half of these boys can become good enough for varsity. With this data, we can figure out how many people in a given school population will be on varsity deservingly. 30% of population puts in the effort * 20% of the population are boys who want to play * 50% are good enough to be varsity, deservingly. This puts us at (0.3)(0.2)(0.5) = 0.03 = 3% of the school population.Now, 11 players are required to be able to play. This does not account for bench time, kickers, special units, etc.Our school must be at least X size, satisfying that X * 3% = 11, or 0.03X = 11, or X = 367.The population of grades 10-12 must be at least 367 for us to expect to have a varsity team full of kids who all deserve to be there, according to his definition of who should get a VL. This results in a high school with some 475 students which, in my state of Texas, would classify the school as a 3A school out of 5A. Since the A distribution is about equal and 3A is in the middle (with 475 being about in the middle of that division), we can confidently say that half of all high schools have less than the requisite amount of people needed to have a varsity team consisting of all players who work hard. This doesn't even take into consideration the fact that football teams are almost always larger than size 11, that coaches don't pick players perfectly and that many players become inelligible due to grades. With all this, it is easy to see that more than half of all schools will have varsity football players who do not work particularly hard. Conclusion: Given these findings, it is clear that my argument is relevant for a great percentage of schools. There will always be kids who do not work hard, but who are part of a varsity team -- and who therefore get a VL. This is true for sports teams and performing arts teams. The opponent's claim thus fails, since the rewarding of a VL can never truly indicate talent, hard work and dedication. Because of this, we cannot ban giving VL's to performing arts students on this basis. I have denied the resolution in a significant way, invalidating the opponent's position. --------------------------------------------------Stock IssuesHarms:I have demonstrated that VL's are not indicative of talent or hard work and that performing arts students will work just as hard as sports players. As such, there is no "demeaning" of the award when given to a performing arts students. Whether this causes bitterness is outside of this resolution. In my experience, there has always been a social tiff between athletics and performing arts. Performing arts students often notice that the single event of football is more heavily funded than the entirety of all performing arts and academic events put together. This likely causes bitterness toward athletics people. Similarly, athletics draws a much bigger crowd than performing arts students, so athletics students feel like they are doing something relevant, whereas the "arts kids" do nothing of serious import. These feelings have always been systematic and if we start denying performing arts kids the right to a VL, these negative relations will only intensify. InherencyA case's inherency refers to it's "inherent barrier" which is some attitudinal or structural obstacle that stops the case from already going through. "The case hasn't been implemented yet." is not an inherent barrier, as it does not show any obstacle preventing the change from happening -- merely that it hasn't happened. The opponent did not produce an inherent barrier here. Fortunately for him, this is not a policy debate. The opponent does offer some mildly interesting history that shows Varsity Letters originated in sports. While I'm glad he presented this evidence, it does nothing for his case. Many sports players get the VL despite the fact that they didn't go "above and beyond", just as many performing arts players have the same privelege. If you go to a small school, you can get on any varsity team you want, sports, academics or performing arts, simply because of the fact that the school is so small. This is an inherent part of being a small school and the opponent's case does not fix this.PoAThe plan seems to be "only give VL's to sports players". This is the plan that I have argued against. The opponent seems to indicate that PA students should get some "other" kind of award if they work hard. The difference between a VL and this "other award" seems to be in name only, which leads one to wonder why there should be a distinction at all. All VL's contain the event in which it was achieved. It is not as if a basoonist can get a VL and try and pass it off as a football VL -- the event is right there under the letter. As such, there already exists a distinction between sports and performing as far as the VL is concerned. [And as far as colleges are concerned, varsity letters mean nothing by themselves. As I've mentioned, small school football players can get VL's even if they are completely awful.]SolvencyThe solvency seems to be that:"The opponent won't have to listen to petty hallway arguments anymore."It's a high school -- there will always be petty arguments to listen to. If this plan went into effect, you'd have to get used to hearing very loud arguments from both students and parents as to why their child doesn't get a Varsity Letter even though they're a 3-time, first chair state basoonist. This "plan" won't bring about harmony to any extent. In fact, the opposite is more likely. It would systematically deny hard working performing arts students a distinction that even a terribly poor football player could get -- an award that has been given to performing arts students before for a very long time. ConclusionThe "stock issues" piece was quite late and not particularly relevant to this type of debate. I hit it anyway, for completeness. My "argumentation" conclusion is the same as by entire conclusion, but I'll give a quick point-by-point.1. Due to the nature of school sizes, there will always be varsity team members who do not work hard. 2. Given (1), denying performing arts students will not fix the problem of VL's being given to non-desrving people.3. If the plan went into action, we would see many hard working PA students cheated out of something deserved. Considering all this, the resolution is denied. It may be that something is needed to insure that only the "deserving" are awarded, but the opponent solution is definitely not it.Thanks to my opponent for keeping his head and welcome to DDO! You'll definitely learn some things here that may be able you with your HS debate career. (Which I assume you're in, given the use of stock issues.)