September 25, 2023

Dear Debate Coaches,

Your squad is cordially invited to attend the annual J. Matt Hill Invitational Debate Tournament. Our tournament will be hosted on October 20-21, 2023. We will offer a DCI division (and will follow the bid allocation procedure), an Open/KDC division, and a CASELIST Novice Division. The Novice division may be judged by 3-4th year debate students. 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 not break brackets.. Rounds will start at 3:45 and be blasted at 3:15. 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.

Right now each division is capped at 40 entries (but I will move things around as I eye entries and rooms).

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.

Judging: In DCI you are required 1 judge per every 2 teams or portion thereof and your judges are obligated one round beyond elimination. My squad is incredibly young this year (10 experienced debaters and 90+ novices) so what we will recruit for the other pools will be as random as it usually is.

See you in late October!

Dustin Rimmey Madeline O’Leary-Worsley & Siyani Scroggins

Director of Debate and Forensics Tournament Director(s)

TLDR Version of the Invitation

1. Date: October 20-21, 2023

2. Topic: C.R.E.A.M and Fiscal Redistribution

3. Format: 8-3-5 with 8 minutes of prep

4. Fees: $5 or whatever you charge me

5. Divisions: DCI, Open and Caselist Novice.

6. Number of Teams: 120 entries max (probably).

7. Extras: First to Flint Hills, second to people who have reciprocated to me, third in the order received.

8. Sweeps: Top 4 teams

9. Judges: You should know the joys of our pool. DCI obligated 1 judge/every 2 teams and YES students can judge in novice.

10. Schedule

11. Elim Notes: Brackets will not be broken, judges will be clean (although we’ll try to limit back-to-back elim judging), higher seed will call an automated coinflip, and have 5 minutes after blast to declare side on tabroom.