Debate Coaches Invitational - Invitation

Qualified debaters are invited to compete at the prestigious annual Debate Coaches Invitational Debate Tournament. 

In order to qualify to the Debate Coaches Invitational, teams have been awarded bids based on their elimination round performances at designated DCI bid tournaments and national qualifiers throughout the fall. To be invited, each debater on a team must have accrued at least 4 DCI bids. Subsequent pairings for round one will be established on a high-low seeding of DCI bids attained. 

In order to formally enter the tournament, please visit the DCI Bid Tracker sheet in order to verify your debaters' DCI bid total. Please review the "Bids By Student" tab and double-check to see if their bid total is correct. If their names are highlighted in yellow, they are DCI eligible. Additionally, the DCI Committee will email each director with a list of qualified debaters.

In order to formally register to the DCI, you will need to complete an Entry Form for each team. In order to pair round 1, we need to seed teams based on their year-long performance. Teams will not be taken off the waitlist until an Entry Form has been submitted in a timely manner.

Registration and Entry Forms are due on Wednesday, December 18th at 5pm. Each debater must be qualified to the DCI in order to be entered. Teams will be admitted off the waitlist as soon as the Committee receives the Entry Form. 

DCI Bidtracker and Entry Form

IN ORDER TO SUBMIT YOUR ENTRIES, GO TO THE ABOVE LINK AND CLICK THE "ENTRY FORM" TAB
Follow the following steps:

At Large Bid Process

After the deadline, if there are is a pool of less than 32 qualified teams entered into the tournament, the DCI Committee will take At Large Bid applications.  If 32 or more teams qualify for and accept invitations to the DCI, there will be no at-large entries accepted.

Judging Requirments, Obligations, and Options

o Suggested Judging Criteria: In order to better encourage a healthy judging pool for the DCI tournament, the Committee strongly suggests directors add judges to cover their entries that regularly judge high school policy debate at the highest divisions at tournaments and/or compete in college policy debate.

o Removal of the First-Year Out Rule: As experienced judges are typically difficult to come by on the DCI weekend due to a number of concurrent college tournaments, the Committee has reviewed and ruled in favour of allowing judges who are in their first year out of high school to be entered in the judging pool.

o Judge Commitment: One judge covers 1-2 teams. Two judges cover 3-4 teams. Please make sure each of these judges are experienced, qualified to evaluate higher-level debates, and have a linked Tabroom account/paradigm.

o Introduction of Judge Strikes: Each team will have the opportunity to strike two judges from the DCI pool.

o JV DCI Crossover: Judges that are obligated for the DCI pool, but don't fit a pairing, may be used for the JV DCI division. 

o Awards: Each team that participates in the tournament will receive medals. (Teams qualifying but not participating will not receive medals.) Teams finishing first and second will take home traveling team trophies. We will also give medals to the top ten speakers in the tournament.

Tournament Structure (New)

The DCI Committee presented a proposal to be a has discussed ways in which we can commit to the values of providing the most excellent tournament experience to the best debaters in the state.  One of the ways in which we believe can better serve students is to alter the DCI tournament structure. That proposal was put up for a vote amongst coaches in Kansas and was overwhelmingly supported.

The tournament structure is as follows:
- 6 Preliminary rounds. (Round 1 is scheduled by seed from year-long DCI statistics. Subsequent preliminary rounds will be paired Hi-Lo)
- Break to Quarterfinals (3 Person Panels, no breaking of the bracket)
- Closed tab until Round 5 (No preliminary round disclosure)

If you have questions, we encourage you to contact a DCI Committee member. 

Sincerely,

The Kansas Debate Coaches Invitational Committee

Carolyn Cook - Shawnee Mission South High School

Sohail Jouya - Mill Valley High School

Ryan McFarland - Blue Valley Southwest High School