Tall Cotton District Qualifier

for the 2022 National Tournament

Tall Cotton NSDA District Meet
 February 24-26, 2022

The Tall Cotton NSDA District Meet will be held at Texas Tech. Thank you to Al Hiland. Thanks also to Lubbock Area Schools for hospitality. 

The deadline for entering students is February 17, at 4:00 p.m.  We will allow double entering but you must fill out the single entry intent portion of the website by registration.  This includes students who compete in congress, Big Questions Debate and those who are nominated for WSD.   Any student who does not have this info entered in Tabroom at the beginning of the tournament will not be allowed to double enter.  Please refer to the current District Tournament Manual for restrictions on entries. 

Entry fees are as follows:

LD Debate $40
CX Debate $40
Public Forum $40

Big Questions $40

Duo $35
Individual Events $35

Senate & House slot $15

Entry deadline is Thursday, February 17 at 4pm.

INTERP:   You will submit all links for online material as well as scripts for print material. You can put the links in a document and send that. For printed literature, please send the pages you are using. That will help us in the event that we have a protest and we must check sources. This is due by FEBRUARY 17th. Those should be sent to Ryan Lovell at ryan.lovell@amaisd.org 

I suggest you bring the originals for all of your interp material to the tournament in case of a protest.  

All titles of duo, humorous, dramatic, and POIs online when you enter your students.  

ORATORY & INFORMATIVE: You must enter the titles of your oratories and informatives on the registration website. Then, copies of your oratories and informatives must be sent to and received by Ryan Lovell.  You will need to include the following: highlight, italicize, or underline all quoted words, state the number of quoted words, include a works cited page in APA or MLA format, and attest by signature of both the coach and the student that the speech is the original work of the contestant.  Deadline for these to be received in Ryan's hands is February 17th, at 4:00 p.m.  You will get confirmation that they have been received. You may email them to ryan.lovell@amaisd.org  and bring the signature page to registration with you. 

DEBATE: Topics are listed on the NSDA website.  Be sure to use the Jan/Feb LD topic and the February PF topic.  

NSDA Student of the Year Nominations are due to Mellessa Denny by 4:00 pm February 11th.  The form can be found on the NSDA website. 

JUDGES: Because of the growing need for judges for our district tournament, coaches will be assigned rounds as needed throughout the tournament.  Coaches will not be assigned to an event in which they still have students competing. Those assigned a duty by the district committee will not be asked to judge except on an emergency basis.  

If you feel like you cannot fulfill the judge requirements for your school, you may bring another person. If you cannot find another person or fill the obligation yourself, you can buy your way out for an additional $200 fee. If you fail to show up for an assigned round, you will be billed $200. 

Our goal is to provide a diverse pool of judges for our tournament. However, we CANNOT do this without your help. Please refer all potential judges you know to the Judges portion of this website. OR, email the contact information of potential judges to our judge chair this year jaadams@bsisd.esc18.net or mellessa.denny@amaisd.org. We will gladly contact them.

We will not use first year outs unless we get into a bind. 

Judge pay:

$30 per IE/duo round

$35 per debate round

If a judge needs hotel accommodations, they need to articulate that to the judge chair by FEBRUARY 10th. We will provide accommodations for Thursday and Friday nights, with up to 4 judges in a room. 

COACHES & JUDGES:

We will be using online ballots through Tabroom. Please read the following:

1. Make sure you and any judge you bring has a Tabroom account. When applying to be hired, make sure you submit the email you used for your Tabroom account. 

2. You will need to check for ballots starting 15 minutes before a round is scheduled to begin. We will send out text and email blasts. 

3. Please click start on your online ballot when you start your round. We need to know that everyone has shown up and the round is starting. If you are in a panel, please make sure all three judges are present and start their online ballot before the round starts. 

Please download and print the current NSDA District Tournament manual from the NSDA website so you will know the rules. We want to send the best group of students that our district can to Nationals.  

Thank you so very much! 

If you have questions, contact Mellessa Denny at the following:

Phone 806-236-0190
Email: mellessa.denny@amaisd.org 

2022 NSDA District Schedule

Thursday, February 24

Texas Tech

Check in for Congress will be at 8:30 am. You may call or text any drops or changes prior to that time to 806-236-0190. We will seat houses at 9am so the chambers have time to vote on agendas and complete other business.  

9:00am - 1:00pm           Congress Prelims Session 

Legislation #1-5

We will have regular registration for all other events while Prelims Session is happening. Please plan to register from 10:30am to 11:30am

2:00pm    IEs Round 1

3:30pm    IEs Round 2

5:00pm     Debate Round 1

6:45pm     Debate Round 2

Friday, February 25

Texas Tech

8:00am - 11:00am           Congress Finals Session 
  Legislation #6-10

12:00am   Debate Rd 3 

1:45pm     IEs Rd 3

3:15pm     Debate Rd 4

5:00pm     IEs Elim Rd 1

6:30pm     Debate Elims Rd 1--which will likely be CX semis, LD quarters & semis, BQ & PF semis/finals

We will single flight this LD round and then run another round, single flighted, at 7:45pm in order to help us get through what is usually the longest event. Please watch the postings for LD and the Tabroom reminders.

Saturday, February 26

Texas Tech 

We will accelerate rounds as possible. If there are no further cross-entering conflicts, we may run debate and IE’s together. Please watch for updates!!!

8:00am    IEs Elims Rd 2 

9:00am    Debate Elims Rd 2 

Additional rounds will follow, if necessary, on an accelerated schedule as well as overlapping events as we can. We have no way of knowing when we will be done as there are not set numbers of rounds. Awards will follow the completion of all final rounds ASAP.

Please be available soon after an event finishes. Coaches involved in the event will be asked to verify results. Then we will check the single entry letter of intent forms to determine national qualifiers. NO RESULTS SHOULD BE MADE PUBLIC UNTIL THE AWARDS ASSEMBLY.