North Texas Longhorns District Qualifier

for the 2022 National Tournament

Individual Event Information

The Individual Events portion of the North Texas Longhorn NSDA district will take place on Friday & Saturday, February 25-26. The events that will be offered will be the main events offered by the NSDA (Dramatic Interp, Humorous Interp, Duo Interp, Program of Oral Interp, US Extemp, Foreign Extemp, Original Oratory, and Informative Speaking). You may see the rules for those events by finding the Unified High School Manual on the NSDA website.  See the information below for the things you will need to know to effectively compete in the tournament.

TOURNAMENT LOCATION

We will be returning to hosting this portion of the tournament in person. We will holding the event in conjunction with the Lone Star NSDA district. The meet will be held at Plano Senior High School 2200 Independence Pkwy  Plano. 75075. We will still have the option for events to be run online as well. If that is decided by the participants, further instructions will be given.

ENTRY REMINDERS

You may enter the tournament by submitting the names of your competitors on this website. Please adhere to the entry qualifications necessary for the tournament.  You must provide the following:

·           single entry intent form  (instructions are on the information page) (That form is now available on the Tabroom.com page)

·           Please note that you also must submit the titles of the interp selections your students will be using.  You also must be willing to provide the text of your original oratories as well. NSDA rules do not require the district committee to examine those unless they are called into question. You do not have to submit the original script unless the cutting is called into question. You must then be able to provide any original scripts. 

You must provide all of that information seven days prior to the tournament date. Please submit your entry and information by Friday, February 18. Please submit proper payment with you on Friday, February 25.  That will allow us to meet all of our necessary expenses in a timely fashion. In addition you must supply the following:

JUDGE PROCUREMENT AND PROCEDURE

All coaches are encouraged to submit names for possible judges to the district committee. The district committee will be responsible for the procurement of judges for the tournament. If you have individuals wishing to be in the judge pool for the tournament, please give their names and contact information to one of the district committee members.

We will follow these procedures in procuring judges:

Potential judge pool procured February 16

Notify judges of hiring February 18

If you know of persons interested in judging at the tournament, please have them contact David Huston (david.huston@gcisd.net) 

Please note: Because we have had difficulty in procuring judges in recent years, the district committee has determined that each school must be willing to provide up to two rounds of judging for each of the individual events and debate tournaments. Please enter that judge's name(s) on the appropriate part of this website. We will use these judges only when our hired judge pool has been exhausted or those individuals can no longer judge entries that are left in the tournament. Judges affiliated with schools may be hired by the tournament, but may not be counted against a school's obligation unless those persons are willing to be named as the school's designated judge. 

Use of computers at the tournament

In Individual Events, extemporaneous speaking competitors will be allowed to access the internet during the extemp draw. They may not communicate with other competitors or coaches while doing so. The rules for that use may be found in the Unified Manual. As has been allowed in the past, computers may be used to store extemp files. 

TOURNAMENT DUTIES

The district committee understands the importance of this tournament. Much criticism is often leveled at individuals and the committee because of a lack of transparency and people not understanding how things are being done. That will not be the case at this tournament. All coaches will be expected to accept a role of some kind. We will need volunteers to run the extemp draw .  The district committee will make those assignments based on the entries we receive for the tournament. We ask that you accept the assignment and take your duties seriously.  Our goal is to allow any coach that wishes to fully understand how students have been assigned to sections, how judges have been assigned, how the tabulation was conducted, and how final rankings have been determined to be provided with that information. We are hoping that will minimize problems and allow all to feel as if their students indeed had the best chance possible to qualify for the national tournament. Please expect an e-mail in the week before the tournament detailing those assignments.  We thank you in advance for your cooperation in these efforts.

Because of the use of the tabroom.com website. At the end of each round, coaches will be able to see ballots and results by logging on to the website. There is a built in audit system for the website that may supercede the need for an audit committee. 

ENTRY FEES AND PAYMENT

The entry fee for each individual event will be $30 per entry. Entry fees should be made out and sent to:

North Texas Longhorn NSDA District

c/o Jordan Innerarity

PO Box 836661

Richardson, TX  75083

***SPECIAL NOTE: WE MAY BE USING CROSS EXAMINATION IN THE FINAL OF THE EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING EVENTS. PLEASE MAKE SURE YOUR STUDENTS ARE PREPARED FOR THAT PROCESS. We will let you know if we are planning on keeping that practice.