Tournament Rules & Expectations

Tournament Information and Rules of Conduct

1. All competing students must be supervised by an employee of the school or school district they are representing or a certified adult supervisor traveling with the permission of the head coach.The supervising coach or adult must also be available throughout the tournament until all of their students are eliminated or have finished competing in their final rounds. Maverick student entries will not be accepted.

2. All students, coaches, judges, and guests are asked to abide by a few conduct rules:

A. Students, coaches, and judges should all abide by the Code of Conduct of the Texas Forensic Association foundhere. This includes respecting the rights of everyone to have a competition free from harassment, bullying, and other offensive and inappropriate behaviors. Persons found in violation of the Code of Conduct in letter or in spirit will be expelled from the tournament, notification will be made to TFA and the offending school's administration, and will not be welcomed back to a tournament hosted by Clear Falls High School again.

B. Our tournament will follow the guidelines established by our governing bodies (TFA, NSDA) in regards to evidence usage, in-round communication, and other event-specific rules. Please ensure your students are fully aware of what is within and outside of the rules for each event they are competing in. These can be found on the TFA and NSDA websites respectively. Declamation will use the NSDA’s rules, however students may present from a manuscript without a mandated penalty, although judges may evaluate engagement if they are overly script-dependent.

3. Sweeptstakes points will be awarded to entries based on the following formula:

Varsity IE's, Duo, and Congress: 1st (30), 2nd (25), 3rd (20), 4th (15), 5th (10), 6th (5), 7th (2), and 8th (1). 7th and 8th only if necessary.

Varsity TFA Debate events: 1st (30), 2nd (25), Semifinalist (20), Quarterfinalist (10), Octofinalist (5). Octofinalist only if necessary.

Novice Extemp, Novice Congress, and Declamation:1st (15), 2nd (12.5), 3rd (10), 4th (7.5), 5th (5), 6th (2.5). 7th and 8th only if necessary (1).

Novice Debate events: 1st (15), 2nd (12.5), Semifinalist (10), Quarterfinalist (5), Octofinalist (2.5). Octofinalist only if necessary.

4. Students are expected to arrive 10-15 minutes before Extemp Draw and at the start of each debate round to ensure their technology is up and running. We will enforce the TFA 15-minute rule for Debate events to ensure a smooth and efficient tournament experience for everyone.

5. For the purposes of our tournament, a novice is defined as a student in their first year of competition in a secondary school (high school).

6. For finals of individual events and semifinals and finals of debate events, we will make every possible effort to panel judges (as long as we have enough judges). TFA qualifying events will have paneled final rounds.

7. The Champion Team will be recognized on our Castle Traveling Trophy. This traveling trophy has become a tradition for our Knight Invitational. The winning team gets to keep the traveling trophy for a year and upon returning it, will receive a permanent trophy for their trophy case, while we add an engraved name plate to the trophy to recognize that team and their Head Coach(es).

8. Students may cross enter in up to 2 events per speech flight, but do so at their own peril (keeping in mind that they could be quad-entered with combined flight prelims/elims. They should compete in whichever event they are scheduled to go earlier and if possible sign-in to their later scheduled cross entered event. Debate competitors may not cross enter in another debate event, nor Duo. Students who advance to semifinals or finals in multiple events are responsible for attending to their rounds as quickly as possible. If a judge has given a student what is deemed to be sufficient time (by the tournament staff) to arrive and that student has not made a good faith effort to arrive to that round, they will be given last place in the round or forfeit the round in debate. Students who may advance to elimination rounds should not spectate rounds when postings are anticipated. The tournament cannot be held up by students watching other performances or losing track of time.