With immense appreciation, you are invited to attend the fourth National Speech Championship on May 30th and 31st of the year 2020. This tournament will provide an opportunity for teams of all resource levels to once again compete for a national team championship. The competition will be incredible and opportunities for both individual and team placement will abound. I am so very thankful to the hundreds of individuals who supported the tournament in 2017 though 2019 by competing, coaching, running the tournament, and judging. I also want to extend a thank you to all of you who will be joining us as we begin a long history of forensics excellence. Special congratulations to Ball State University for winning the 2019 National Speech Championship.

2020 George Mason University - Fairfax, Virginia

2021 Ball State University - Muncie, Indiana

2022 Currently accepting bids

Teams are asked to provide enough judges to cover their entry. Each judge will cover six entries. To fully cover an entry of point scoring events a team will need to provide four judges. Hired judges will be available at a rate of $40 per uncovered entry. If this fee prevents any team from attending the tournament, that team may contact the tournament director, Ryan Lauth at info@nationalspeechchampionship.com, for a fee waiver. The tournament is happy to provide this waiver as a means to support forensics participation around the nation. There will be no charge for any entries covered by judges. 

Each team will be allowed a maximum of four entries per event. A single student may enter in duo twice if each duo has a separate partner. A single student can be entered in each event, other than duo, only once. There are no flight restrictions for individual students, however judges will be asked not to wait for competitors past the beginning of the following round in order to keep the tournament on schedule. There will be no qualification process necessary for entry. 

 

The exception to the four entry maximum limit is Interviewing. Each team may enter a maximum of five entries in Interviewing.  Points will not be awarded for Interviewing. 

 

Students in their first year of collegiate competition are allowed to be entered as novice on speechwire. Novice students will be eligible for novice exhibition finals only if they do not advance in that event to open elimination rounds. The novice exhibition finals will take place at the same time as open semi-finals. There will be no ranking of the novice exhibition final rounds. Instead, a moderator will run the round and offer only feedback on ballots. Novice final round competitors will be recognized during the awards ceremony. There will be no points awarded for novice final rounds. 

 

Entries will be due via Speechwire.com by April 30th. 

Medals will be awarded to all elimination round competitors, including those in Interviewing. Traveling team trophies will be awarded to the top ten teams based upon points from that year’s elimination rounds. Each of these trophies will have space to engrave the names of the coaches and students from each team earning that trophy. The traveling team trophies will need to be returned to the tournament the following year. The top fifteen teams will also be awarded a team trophy that can be kept. 

 

A traveling team award will also be given to the team earning the most points in tournament history with points being reset to zero after winning. 

 

Recognition will also be given to the top three non-scholarship programs, the top three two year institutions, the top three programs directed by undergraduate students, and the top three programs directed by graduate students. 

 

Further recognition of requested division placement will be viewable via speechwire after the awards ceremony. To request additional divisional competition, please contact the tournament director.

No points will be earned in preliminary round competition. There will be two judges in each preliminary round. Elimination round placement will be determined based on each entry’s three best ranks. Each team will be limited to advancement to elimination rounds of only their best two seeds after prelims in each event. Only the highest placing entry from each team in each event will score points. Points will be determined by adding all of the elimination round placements along the following scale:

 

          Quarter finals = 1point

          Semi finals = 2points

          6th place = 2 points

          5th place = 4 points

          4th place = 6 points

          3rd place = 8 points

          2nd place = 10 points 

          1st place = 12 point

 

A student winning an event will therefore earn 15 team points.

 

All teams will earn 20 points for attending the tournament.