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Tournament Invitation – UNT 2025

Dear Colleagues,

The University of North Texas William DeMougeot Debate Forum and the Department of Communication Studies at UNT are pleased to invite you to attend the 17^th Annual John S. Gossett Memorial High School Speech & Debate Tournament this October 24-25, 2025. This year's tournament will be IN PERSON and hosted on the UNT Denton Campus.

Policy Debate, Public Forum and Lincoln-Douglas will have 4 preliminary rounds and break to the appropriate amount of elimination rounds according to the division size. Congress will have Prelims and Finals on Friday. Congressional Debate will run on a schedule that allows Congressional Debate entries to enter all Individual Events.

We are excited to offer a World School Debate division. World School Debate motions can be found at www.txfa.org

The LD topic will be the NSDA topic for September/October.

The CX topic will be the high school 2025-2026 Policy topic.

The Novice CX division will follow the Region 2 Novice packet rules. Please see below for more details.

The PFD topic will be the NSDA topic for September/October.

The Congressional Debate legislation can be found at www.txfa.org and we will be using the Fall 2025 Legislative Docket. The legislative docket will be announced a month prior to the tournament

Policy, Public Forum and Lincoln-Douglas debate may not enter IE events. Brackets will not be broken in any debate event. We are planning to have panels in elimination rounds, if possible. For IE, Duo, and Duet, we will have 8 in finals for the events that meet the TFA standard for 8 in a final round.

We will be offering DI, Duo, Prose, OO, USX, POI, HI, Duet, Poetry, Informative, IX, and NX. All Individual Events will be held on Saturday, October 25^th.

Pa ern A: DI, Duo, Prose, OO, POI

Pa ern B: HI, Duet, Poetry, Informative, IX, USX, NX

Should you have any questions regarding tournament logistics, please contact, Dr. Brian Lain. He can be reached by email – brian.lain@unt.edu

Thank you for joining us, and please let us know if there is anything we can do to make your experience more enjoyable.

Best Regards,

Dr. Brian Lain, Director of Debate

Niko Sims, Student and Program Coordinator

Schedule

CX, LD and PF Debate:

Friday, October 24^th

- 4:30pm – Round 1

- 6:30pm – Round 2

Saturday, October 25^th

- 8:30am – Round 3

- 10:30am – Round 4

- 2:15pm – Quarterfinals

- 5:15pm – Semifinals

- 7:30pm – Finals

Congressional Debate:

Friday, October 24^th

- 4:30pm – Session 1

- 7:00pm – Session 1 ends

- 7:30pm – Finals Starts

- 10:00pm – Finals End

World Schools Debate:

Friday, October 24^th

- 4:30pm – Announce Round 1 motion

- 5:30pm – Round 1

- 7:30pm – Round 2

Saturday, October 25^th

- 8:30am – Announce Round 3 motion

- 9:30am – Round 3

- 11:00am – Round 4

- 1:00pm – Announce Quarterfinals mo on

- 2:00pm – Quarterfinals

- 4:00pm – Semifinals

- 5:30pm – finals

Individual Events

Saturday, October 25^th

9:00 am: Round 1 Flight A (POI, Po, Info)

10:00 am: Draw

10:30 am: Round 1 Flight B (USX, IX, NX, OO)

11:30 am: Draw

12:00 pm: Round 2 Flight B (USX, IX, NX, OO)

1:30 pm: Round 2 Flight A (POI, Po, Info)

2:30 pm: Draw

3:00 pm: Elim 1 Flight B (USX, IX, NX, OO)

4:30 pm: Elim 1 Flight A (POI, Po, Info)

5:30 pm: Draw

6:00 pm: Elim 2 Flight B (USX, OO)

*Semifinals in IEs will depend on entries in each event

Fee Structure

Entry Fees:

Judging Fees

Congress: $150 (1 judge for every 10 entries)

Individual Events: $150 (1 judge for every 10 entries)

Debate Judge: $50/round (2 rds per CX/WSD entry, 1 rd per LD/PF entry)

Fines

Fine for drops a er Mon, Oct. 20, 2025 at 5:00 PM $50

Fine per round for no-show judges: $50

Novice Packet

The novice policy division competitors must use the NDCA Novice Packet, following the rollout schedule outlined here. Only authorized NDCA files will be allowed in our novice policy division.

No changes to the files [including tags or evidence] will be allowed. Debaters are encouraged to make their own non-carded arguments, as analytical arguments and extensions, including overviews and explanations of arguments.

Anyone registering novice policy teams should plan to abide by the evidence restrictions in the division. Novice policy judges will be educated about the packet and the restrictions prior to judging in the division. Schools will be expected to educate their judges about the packet and restrictions prior to the tournament.

The region 2 files organized by phases in the schedule are located here

The full NDCA novice packet and other curriculum is located here.

Judging

Judging:

While we work very hard to provide high quality judges:

- schools are expected to provide qualified judges for their entry. Schools may not completely “buy out” of their judging obliga ons.

- Each school is required to provide at least 1 QUALIFIED judge per event they are entering unless they meet the above requirement.

- Schools are responsible for providing judges to cover their entries. 1 judge for every 10 Individual Event entries (or por on thereof), every 2 VCX/NCX teams (or por on thereof), and every 4 VLD/NLD or PF entries (or por on thereof) will be required. We would prefer to have your judges more than your fees!

Judging Fees:

***Minimum number of rounds per debate judge per debate entry is 2 rounds for prelims (1 CX/LD/PF/WSD team = 2 prelim rounds, 2 CX/LD/PF/WSD team = 4 rounds. Every judge in the pool is obligated 1 round past your school's elimination in that event.

***Judge fees will be assessed at the entry deadline. All judge changes a er this point should be emailed directly to Brian Lain. We cannot credit your bill for judges' names received a er the intial drop deadline.