Logistics & Rules

Buildings

The main tournament building is the Classroom and Business Building (CBB, Map here - https://goo.gl/maps/EfytPZstpGy) Parking - I will have parking passes for those who need to park cars on campus at registration and at the main tab table. This will mainly be relevant on Friday, when the University is open. I recommend parking in lot 21B (map - https://goo.gl/maps/ksfDLH3m4b92) which is close to most of our tournament spaces (most events will take in close proximity to the CBB, see map above).  You could also park in one of the parking garages, but it will be a bit pricey. The passes are free (to you) and will allow you to park closer to most buildings.

Bus parking Please park in lot 20C (Map - https://goo.gl/maps/SJZuqSQw6cB2

Locations (for both the UH & Dobie portions of the Swing)

All rounds of CX, LD, PF, CD and Extemp will be held on the University of Houston campus. 

All IE rounds (minus extemp) will be held at Dobie High School

There is no cross-entry between events at between locations.

For teams who also have speech entries, we will have a bus from the UH campus to Dobie High School – which will depart on Friday at 12:30 and on Saturday at 6:45 am in front of Philip Guthrie Hoffman Hall. Please contact Andrew Barrett abarrett@pasadenaisd.org to let him know if you would like your students to take the bus.  

Please email all names of students that will be taking transport Friday/Saturday by December 18^th.

Logistics & Rules

For both the UH and Dobie tournaments, all debate events and extemp will be on the UH campus and all IE events (excluding extemp) will be on the Dobie campus.

Entry for the Debate tournaments (held at UH) will be http://cougar.tabroom.com, for the Individual Events tournament (held at Dobie), entry will be at joyoftournaments.com.

Teams are encouraged to enter both the UH and Dobie tournaments, if a team breaks in the UH tournament in CX, LD or PF, we will “drop” them from the Dobie portion of the tournament.

We will freeze entries on tabroom.com at midnight on January 3^rd. Any changes after that date must be communicated to the tournament staff directly.

TFA rules will be followed in all TFA events.

The current NSDA topics will be used in all debate events.

Contestants must be accompanied by a coach or an approved adult sponsor.

If entries from the same school meet in elimination rounds, we will not break brackets.

Panels will be used in all elimination rounds.

The use of tobacco is prohibited on the UH campus including the parking lot and sidewalks. 

Any defacing or damaging of school property will result in instant disqualification of that student. The incident will be reported to the authorities and students may be subject to arrest.

Awards

Awards will be given to all contestants in elimination rounds.  Debate speaker awards will be given to the top ten speakers in each division.  Three sweepstakes places will be awarded for performance at both the Dobie and UH tournaments.

Cross-Entry

Contestants may not cross-enter in events held on different campuses:

UH events: CX, LD, PF, CD, Ext

Dobie events: DUO, DUET, IMP, PR, PO, OO, DI, HI

Contestants may enter only one division of extemp. 

Contestants may cross-enter in a maximum of 2 events on the UH campus with the following exceptions:

No cross-entry for any contestant in CX.

No cross-entry between PF & LD.

Contestants should make an effort to notify their judges when they are cross-entered.  Tardiness to rounds may result in disqualification unless excused by the tournament director.

Congress

Presiding officers will be elected. Please indicate students who wish to run for PO on the entry.  We will use direct questioning in finals. Congress legislation can be found in the Congress section on the TFA website at www.txfa.org. Congress legislation will be debated as follows:

Prelims:  Items 1-12

Semis:  Items 13-21

Finals:  Items 22-30.