Newman Invitational Speech and Debate Tournament

December 9-11, 2016
New Orleans

You and your students are cordially invited to attend the 38th Newman Invitational.  We provide a unique and diverse competitive experience.  Last year, we attracted over 50 schools from 8 different states.

We are pleased to announce that we are a qualifying tournament for UK's TOC in ten events and the NIETOC in four events.  In the appropriate events, students advancing to bid rounds of this tournament will earn one official bid for the 2017 National Tournament of Champions hosted by the University of Kentucky in Lexington, KY, on April 29-May 1, 2017, and/or the 2017 NIETOC hosted by Liberty North HS in Kansas City, MO, on May 12-14, 2017.  The specific qualifying events are listed below.

We offer 6 preliminary rounds of debate in Policy, LD, and PF, with novice and varsity divisions in Policy and LD.  We also offer 2 three-hour preliminary sessions in Congress.  Please be aware that elims in some of the debate events will carry over to Sunday except for Congress, which will have its final session on Saturday.  Additionally, we offer 4 preliminary rounds in all speech events; however, we will not be able to allow cross-entry between debate and speech events.  Speech competitors can enter up to 3 events within the speech category but no triple entry within a pattern.

IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT PF:  As a continued experiment in Public Forum Debate, we are eliminating the "coin flip" in all preliminary rounds.  The tabulation software determines sides, guaranteeing best possible balance between "pro" and "con" sides in the prelims.  The pro side always speaks first.  In the elims, the teams flip for sides (unless they met previously in the prelims), but the pro side still always speaks first.

We will tabulate all events on tabroom.com. All postings will be available online and texts will be blasted for those that sign up for that service.  For Policy, LD, and PF, ballots will be completed online. All judges in those events need to have a linked tabroom.com account.  Judges in congress and speech events will be completing paper ballots (both master and individual critiques).

Summary of events and TOC qualification status

*semis bid for the Silver (international) division and finals bid for the Gold division

If you have any questions about the tournament, please do not hesitate to ask.

Thank you,

Greg Malis and Alma Nicholson
Tournament Directors