Editorial: Prove How Much You Love America, Win $150,000 (Unless you live in Florida)
(This is the first in a series of editorials by Brandon Sheats, editor @ Georgia Forensics Daily. They do not represent the opinion of the organization as a whole.)
The NFL has partnered with Pinnacle Performance Group to present Now Debate This, where students are to create a 2 minute, 30 second video on one of these questions:
1. What is the most important duty of the President as commander in chief, and why?
2. What does ‘patriotism’ mean to you?
3. What can the Declaration of Independence tell us about life in 2008?
If you win the first round, you go on an “excursion tour” studying George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, the entire time gearing up for the final debates, conducted in a round-robin, then 1-1 format.
But wait, there’s one more thing:
If you live in Florida, you can’t participate.
I don’t know the legal reason for it. I just found that to be somewhat interesting. I have never heard of any kind of contest that leaves out an entire state, one of the states with a great deal of high school students.
Sorry, Florida, it seems that this is not your year for many things. (Democrats, etc.)
Oh, and that summer job you were thinking of having? That’s a no-no without their express consent. (You do get a $3500 stipend, though.)
The winner gets $150k, second place gets $50k.
Not to say I wouldn’t encourage anyone to do it (I’m thinking of two debaters I know of right now), it’s just that some people might not read the legalese.
Another thing: If the NFL is going to do something like this, how about having a competition that starts off with a debate? Or upping the amounts that are awarded at Nationals? It seems if we want to market debate as a good thing, we could create a larger end goal for the events we have during the regular year, not some larger gamble.
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