Gonzaga University Conway Classic
2025 — Spokane, WA/US
Gonzaga University
Conway Winter Classic
Speech and Debate Tournament
January 10th – 1th, 2025
The Gonzaga University Debate Program cordially invites your team to attend the 75th Conway Classic hosted on our beautiful campus in Spokane, Washington.
The tournament will be held Friday January 10th-Saturday January 11th. Depending on entry sizes it is possible we will need to finish elimination rounds of Open CX debate on Sunday morning and we will make that announcement as soon as we can estimate the size of that division. Our tournament will offer 6 preliminary rounds in Open and JV in CX/Policy, Lincoln-Douglas, Public Forum and 3 rounds in Open and JV Congress. We also offer 3 preliminary rounds in an Open division of 10 individual events: Humorous Interpretation, Extemporaneous speaking; Oratory, Informative Speaking; Impromptu; Duo, Ed Comm, and Dramatic Interpretation, and Spoken Word Poetry
We are pleased to announce that we will once again serve as aTournament of Champions (TOC) Bid Qualifying Tournament in Policy debate at the Semifinals. All teams advancing to the semifinals in our Open division will earn a bid towards TOC qualification.
Entry
Online entry will be through Tabroom.com. You will need to set up your schools account if you do not already have one.http://gonzagaconway.tabroom.com
Judges, coaches and competitors will have access to the GU Guest Network. It is highly advised that if your students/judges are not familiar with tabroom and all of its online features (pairings, results, ballot pickup and turn in, etc) you give them a heads up and perhaps some training on how to access all these features.
Feesand Payment
$30 per Policy Team (in-person)
$75 per Policy Team (online)
$20 per Public Forum Team
$20 per LD Entry
$20 per Congress Entry
$15 per Speech Entry
$30 per round for uncovered judging in LD and Public Forum debate
$50 per round for uncovered judging in CX debate
$10 per slot for uncovered judging in all Individual Events
You can pay your fees online with a credit card. If you’d like to do this please visit our secure payment site athttps://commerce.cashnet.com/GUDebate2and clicking on the link for “Conway Classic”. You will be able to access your invoice in tabroom for the accurate total.
If you are paying by check please make them payable toGonzaga Debate.
You can deliver the payment at registration on or mail in advance to:
Gonzaga Debate
AD Box 20
Gonzaga University
Spokane, Washington
99258
If you are paying by PO please make every attempt to get that to us in advance (scan and email is fine) to avoid delays.
Hotel Information
We will not have an official “tournament hotel” as all events will take place on our campus, but there are a number of hotels close to the campus available that weekend.
Courtyard Marriott
Fairfield Inn
https://www.marriott.com/en-us/hotels/gegfi-fairfield-inn-and-suites-spokane-downtown/overview/
Ruby River Hotel(formerly the Red Lion River Inn)
https://rubyriverhotelspokane.com/
Centennial Hotel
Oxford Suites
https://www.oxfordsuitesspokane.com/
Holiday Inn
https://www.ihg.com/holidayinnexpress/hotels/us/en/spokane/skaex/hoteldetail
Deadlines
We will accept entries until we are full (which is based on available classroom space). Once we are full we will no longer accept entries but you can waitlist student. You are encouraged to enter early.
We will accept drops without payment until January 7th. All drops after that will be charged the full entry fee.
Judging
Schools must provide 3 rounds of prelim judging for each debate entry (so one judge can cover up to 6 rounds in a single event). IE judges can cover up to six individual event slots.
Please make sure that if you are entering teams in the Open Division that the judges who are covering their entry are qualified to judge debates in that division.
Please be sure all conflicts and restrictions are entered in tabroom.
Debate judges are committed one round past the round their team was eliminated in. For example, if you clear no teams in debate, you are still obligated for the first elimination round. If your team loses in the quarters, your judges are still obligated for the semis, etc.
Judges will all need accounts on tabroom in order to access their online ballots.
Hired Judges: We use the hired judging exchange. If you wish to hire a judge please access the hired judge exchange, contact the judge you wish to hire, and once they agree to your terms you can enter them as your judge.
Debate Rules
CX times are 8-3-5 with 8 minutes prep
The topic for CX debates will be the the 2024-2025 NSDA resolution. Resolved: The United States federal government should significantly strengthen its protection of domestic intellectual property rights in copyrights, patents, and/or trademarks. (https://www.speechanddebate.org/topics/)
Lincoln Douglas and PF will use the NFL January/February topics.
Rounds one and two will be pre-set in all debate events. Rounds three through round six will be power matched accordingly.
We do not break brackets in elimination debates. If two teams from the same school are seeded in such a way that they meet in the elimination rounds no debate will occur. One team will advance to the next out round based on coach decision.Coaches should come to the tabroom and let us know who to advance. If you don’t we will simply advance the higher seed.
As per WSFA rules we cannot sanction a debate that occurs after 10pm on Saturday (which means quick decisions and short prep in CX elims.
All students competing at the Conway must be representing their enrolled high school. No independent entries are allowed. In Policy and Public Forum debate, both team members must be from the same school; no hybrid entries are allowed.
Competitors may access the internet during debates for the purpose of transferring speech documents, accessing online files, and conducting spot research.
All 4-2's will clear to an appropriate number of elimination rounds.
Other questions about debate please emailFrappier@gem.gonzaga.edu
Student Congress
We will offer an Open division of Congress. Congress will run simultaneously with debate so students may not cross enter in those events. Rules will incorporate the newly adopted NFL Congress rulings.
BestPOwill be chosen by the parliamentarian and the top speakers will be determined by adult scorers.
Legislation:The official Spring legislation adopted by the WSFA will be the legislation used for the tournament.A copy of the legislation will be available on tabroom.com at our tournament site as soon as its released by the WSFA. This is usually around mid December.
Please have your students in Congress bring their own copies of the legislation. NO COPIES WILL BE PROVIDED.
We will follow the docket setting method suggested by the WSFA committee. Each school represented in each house will draw numbers to determine the order for a legislation draft. They will then take turns picking bills to be debated. This will determine the docket for the session. For further clarification, please refer to the first page of the packet.
Separate Legislation for Super Congress is included in the WSFA packet and will ONLY be used for Super Congress.
Scoring: The NSDA has discontinued the use of the base system, HOWEVER if chambers are small and speakers make more than five speeches, the base system may be resurrected in order to ensure that quality over quantity prevails. Speaker precedence will not be reset between the sessions. Points awarded to POs for presiding count as speeches.Each speech will be awarded up to 6 points by the judge in the round. The parliamentarian will score thePO.After each session, judges will rank the top eight speakers, including thePO.The cumulative total of these ranks in preliminary rounds will determine the students who will advance to Super Congress.The parliamentarian’s one-time ranking of the chamber at the end of preliminary rounds will be used to break any ties that result both in determining who breaks to Super Congress and in final awards.If the number of entries results in more than one chamber of Congress for a division of competition, SessionIIIwill be a Super Congress. After Session II, the top7 to 10members of each chamber (based on total judge rankings from session I and II) will advance to the Final Session. The legislation identified by the State as Super Congress Legislation will be the only legislation discussed during this round.Awards will be based on the cumulative rankings of judges during the final round.Parliamentarian ranking will be used to break ties.The top three competitors will receive Judge’s Choice Awards.There will also be a topPOaward as determined by the Parliamentarian.If there is only one chamber of Congress for a division of competition, SessionIIIwill be a regular session, and final scores for 1st place , 2nd, and 3rd, will be determined by the accumulation of judges’ rankings for all three preliminary rounds. OutstandingPOwill determined by the parliamentarian. There will be no Student Choice Award.
Additionally, the recent updates to the WSFA rules governing student congress allow the use of computers in Congressional Debate.Students will be allowed to use computers in round for flowing, note taking, the reading of speeches and looking up pre-prepared evidence. Internet use will not be allowed, and scorers will be seated in a way to catch violators of this rule. The use of computers is at the risk of the individual competitor. Power strips will not be provided for competitors and students may not rearrange the seating chart in order to allow access to power. Students are not allowed to use computers that are currently in the classroom. Competitors who unplug objects in a classroom will be disqualified from the tournament.
Sweepstakes Tabulation
We will be awarding trophies to the 1st, 2nd, and 3rdplace schools in the overall sweepstakes. These sweepstakes are for debate and individual events only. Please see Student Congress section for explanation of SC sweepstakes awards.
Points for Sweepstakes will be awarded as follows:
Place I.E.’sDebate/Congress
First 15 25
Second 10 20
We are looking forward to welcoming many of you to Spokane in October. We sincerely hope you and your team can make the trip, but even if you cannot we look forward to hosting you for a weekend of competitive debates. Please feel free to contact us with any questions you may have.
Go Zags!
Gonzaga Debate