Osler's Razor

Congratulations again to Christie Smith, Layne Rouse, Rachel Sonstein, Kaye Johnson, Tom Jacob, and Ed Cloutman for finishing third out at the National Ethics Smackdown in Sacramento. Once again, our students showed people across the country what we can do, even with rookies (albeit, incredibly talented rookies).

I was thinking about the record of my teams over the past five years:

2003 NACDL: Champions
2004 NACDL: 3rd
2006 ATLA: 3rd in region
2006 SMU Rookie Tourney: Champions
2007 NETC: 3rd
2007 NACDL: Did not break
2008 NETC: 3rd

Making the semifinals 6 out of 7 times (out of fields ranging from 12-20 teams) isn't so bad. Most recently, any success should probably be credited to Gordon Davenport, who has been working with the teams more than I have (and traveled with this group to Sacramento). Judge Manske, of course, also has been instrumental to our good outcomes.

But what is my problem with getting through to the finals? 4 out of 7 teams losing in the semifinals? I have been doing some real soul-searching on what I might be doing wrong on this point, and have decided that the problem might be my teams' lack of a name. After all, all the great teams have a name attached to their city or school. So, let's have a contest to name future Osler mock trial teams. Feel free to offer suggestions below. Here are a few I have considered:

-- The Fighting Jaworskis
-- The Walter and Sheila Umphries
-- [for an all-female team, which I have never had]: The Sheilas
-- The Hey-hey-heys

Any other ideas?