Dear Debate Coaches,

Your squad is cordially invited to attend the annual J. Matt Hill Invitational Debate Tournament.  Our tournament will be hosted on November 16-17, 2018.  We will offer a DCI division (and will follow the bid allocation procedure), an Open/KDC division, and a Junior Varsity division (your JV entries are limited to novices and/or second years only).  Entries must be entered on Tabroom.com. All entries will be waitlisted from the start, and I will admit them ASAP.

The tournament will hold 5 preliminary rounds, with two on Friday and three on Saturday. We will break to Quarters in all divisions, and we will have a “second year breakout” semifinal in the DCI division (unless entries do not warrant it).  Rounds will start at 3:45 with registration beginning at 2:45 in our Cafeteria. Many of you understand the chaos that is THS at the end of the day, so you may want to get here early to avoid some traffic, or after 3:15 to find an easier parking space.  Note the later round 1 start time to accommodate for later arrivals.  We ask that you hold your debaters in the Cafeteria until 3:10 pm to allow our staff to clear the halls.

Our tradition of powermatching DCI in round 1-2 will continue.  You must email me the record/win-loss of your DCI teams by Monday, November 12th.  To create a norm for records, give me the records at your best four tournaments. We will have a high-high match in Round 1 (based on your records pre-tournament) and Round 2 will be high-low.

Each school may enter 4 teams, 6 if you are a flint hills school (with no more than 4 in the DCI Division, this will change after every school has been guaranteed what they want in DCI and then I will allow you to go over this cap, but don’t be crazy huge).  Right now, I am limited to 65-70 rooms, which means I will set the first cap at 130 entries and may expand later if additional space opens itself up to me.

The fee is $5.00 per team, or whatever you have charged us to attend your fine tournament. Extras will be allocated in the following fashion: 1. Flint Hills Schools, 2. Schools who have allowed me extras, 3. In the order requests are received.  To be eligible for Sweepstakes, we will take your top four teams regardless of divisions. We will award medals to all quarterfinalists and beyond with additional awards for semifinal and final round competitors.

All teams must have two competitors from the same school, however if there is a day-of emergency, mavericks will be allowed to compete, but will not be eligible for elimination rounds.  This year, the fall play (Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime) is on top of our tournament which will make some spaces tight on Friday night.

In terms of our pool, we will rely on former debaters and long-time judges throughout the fine city of Topeka, and the more experienced judges will be in DCI.  If you are entering DCI teams and want a better DCI pool, you should add a judge who is willing to judge some prelim rounds on tabroom.  If you are requesting more than 2 DCI teams, be prepared to provide a Judge.  Additionally, we will do a “coaches round” during round 2 of the JV division.  This is something I’ve wanted to do for the last couple of years, but haven’t.  These kids are the future, and they rarely get someone who will give them a good debate-oriented ballot.  Please enter your self (head coach) as a judge, and I will use you for that round ONLY unless you want to judge other rounds.

Entry fees are due as soon as you can get them to me, and all teams dropped after November 14th will still be billed.  

See you in November,

Dustin Rimmey Wesley Roush

Director of Debate and Forensics Tournament Director