North Texas Longhorns District Qualifier

for the 2020 National Tournament

Debate Events

Member schools of the North Texas Longhorn NSDA District are invited to compete in the debate portion of the district tournament. The following paragraphs will help with the details of the event.

DATE & LOCATION

Competitions in Policy, Lincoln-Douglas, and Public Forum debate will be offered on  Thursday & Saturday, February 28 & February 29.   The tournament will be held at Colleyville Heritage High School. The address is 5401 Heritage Ave  Colleyville, TX  76034

ENTRY REQUIREMENTS

Member schools may enter up to four entries in any of the three debate categories. Schools must have entries available in their allotted amount based on members and degrees. Public Forum and Policy debate teams count as one entry.

You must notify the district chair (David Huston) by February 20 of your intent to enter the debate portion of the tournament.  You may do so by entering students on this website. That intent should include the names of your students. Other procedures will follow the conducting of debate events as described in the District Tournament Manual (Pilot). You will also need to bring the “official green sheet” with you for your official entry. If your students have entered or are planning to enter the individual events or Congress portions of the tournament, they must also complete the single entry letter of intent. You may find that letter on the NSDA website. REMEMBER: STUDENTS MAY ONLY ENTER TWO EVENTS IN DEBATE OR INDIVIDUAL EVENTS. IF YOU HAVE A STUDENT WHO IS PLANNING TO COMPETE IN TWO INDIVIDUAL EVENTS, THEY MAY NOT ENTER THE DEBATE PORTION OF THE DISTRICT TOURNAMENT. 

 The District Tournament manual has been amended to require an audit committee and a posting of results for all rounds. Coaches will ultimately be responsible for the accuracy of the results. We will be following these new requirements and procedures. 

Special tabulation information: The NSDA is moving to an online balloting system, especially for debate, using 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.  We will follow the procedures as outlined in the High School Unified Operations Manual (Pilot).  You may find the pilot manual on the NSDA website. 

Pilot Rules in Debate

We have again been asked to serve as a pilot rules district for the tournament this year. So, what does that mean? In individual events, the rules follow the California Plan pretty closely. The major difference is that none of the prelims are power matched. 

Debate, however, is very different. All debate contestants will participate in a minimum of four rounds of preliminary competition. All contestants with a 3-1 record or better will participate in the appropriate level of double elimination round. Brackets will not be broken in the elimination rounds. Contestants will not be paired against other contestants from their own schools in the preliminary rounds. Since we have three qualifiers this year, and are using a winners/losers bracket format, we are probably looking at 4-5 elimination rounds in the three debate events. All of that will be dependent on the number of entries in each category.

In other words, the tournament will run very similar to the debate tournaments we attend every weekend. The Unified Manual for the Pilot Rules does explain the procedures. We anticipate questions and will do the best we can to provide answers. 

ENTRY FEES

All fees are posted on the fee information page. Please follow the procedures to pay your fees. 

JUDGES

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. 

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.

 TOPICS WE WILL USE

POLICY DEBATE: Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially reduce Direct Commercial Sales and/or Foreign Military Sales of arms from the United States.

LINCOLN-DOUGLAS: Resolved: Predictive policing is unjust.

PUBLIC FORUM: Resolved: The United States should increase its use of nuclear energy for commercial energy production.

 STUDENT & COACH HOSPITALITY

There will be a coach/judge lounge set up for those attending and adjudicating the tournament. In addition, there will be a concession stand for students with varied fare at nominal prices.

 TENTATIVE SCHEDULE

 The schedule can be found under the "Tentative Schedule" link on this website. We will follow the same format and schedule that we did last year. We will begin with three rounds of debate on Thursday night. We will continue with three rounds of the public speaking individual events on Friday night. On Saturday, the tournament will continue with Round 4 of debate and the debate elimination rounds, preliminary and elimination rounds in the interp events, and the semifinal and final rounds of public speaking. Please ask questions about the schedule if you have them.