Indian Springs Closes Out the TOC

LEXINGTON, Ky. — Indian Springs High School’s Jeff Liu and Larry Liu have closed out the final round of the National High School Tournament of Champions, and were declared TOC Co-Champions. Read more →

Ask Cruz XXVI: TOC Champions, Runners-up, Top Speakers

NEW YORK, N.Y. — Who won the TOC in Year X? Who was the runner-up? Who was the top speaker? Which schools and states have the longest history of excellence at the TOC?

“Ask Cruz” returns in time to guide us through the history of the National High School Tournament of Champions in Lincoln-Douglas Debate just before the start of the fortieth annual installment of the championship event of national circuit debating. Read more →

Happy Birthday, Neil Conrad!

WASHINGTON, D.C. — One. More. Year.

I am now officially positive that only Neil gets this joke, but hey. Happy birthday, my friend. The University of Chicago is lucky to have one of debate’s finest coaches studying there for his J.D.

Chris Castillo probably gets this joke, too, actually.

Judges: TOC

LEXINGTON, Ky. — The judge pools for Lincoln-Douglas Debate and Policy Debate at the fortieth annual National High School Tournament of Champions are available here on VBD.

The conflict sheet is also now online for Lincoln-Douglas Debate judges. It has been emailed by Andrea Reed, the Tournament Director, to all coaches with participating students. Read more →

TOC Adds Eighth Prelim

LEXINGTON, Ky. — “At the recommendation of several LD coaches,” announced TOC director Andrea Reed in an email today, “we have added an 8th prelim debate to the TOC. We did this due to the prevalent side-bias towards the neg and the concern that an odd number of rounds gives advantage to the debater who happens to get to be neg in round 7. All debaters with a prelim record of 5-3 or better will advance, which will necessitate a run-off round. (All judges are still obligated through the first debate on Monday, the octos, as per the invitation.) What this does mean is that if you have 2 LDers, we request that you provide 8 rounds of judging instead of the original 7 (or if you have 4 debaters, we need 16 instead of 14). Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any issues with this.”