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NSDA Rules Tournament at Discovery Canyon Campus on December 6, 2025

Deadlines: Registration will open on Speechwire next week. Register on Speechwire.com by NOON December 2 so we can figure out rooms and food. We are just doing one registration deadline; what is registered on December 2 is what you will pay for. We will not take any day of adds. Because this is practice for NSDA Quals, you MUST enter titles and authors for interp students and TOPICS for OO and INFO. Do NOT forget this step, and it MUST be done when you register your students, so be sure you are getting their titles and authors now.

Events: We will offer the following:

Main Events - PF, LD, USX, IX, OO, INFO, DI, HI, DUO, POI, Congress.
We will also offer Impromptu, Creative Storytelling, and Big Questions. Note: we will run this starting after the first elim cut at Nat Quals in February as a NATIONAL QUALIFYING EVENT, so this would be GREAT practice.
- Find more info about Big Questions here: https://www.speechanddebate.org/big-questions/
- Impromptu: The speaker draws three prompts from an envelope. After drawing the three prompts, the student must select one and begin brainstorming their ideas for the speech. In total, a student has seven minutes. These seven minutes may be divided up by the student however they see fit. There is no minimum amount of time required for brainstorming and no minimum amount of time for speaking, but their total time is seven minutes. More info here: chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.speechanddebate.org/wp-content/uploads/Impromptu-Starter-Kit.pdf
- Creative Storytelling: A competitor chooses between three topic outlines and then is given 15 minutes to prepare a creative story based on the outline that they have chosen. Once picked, they are not allowed to use outside sources and are expected to have narration and characterization in their story. Each story must be between three and five minutes.
We must have a minimum of 5 entries to run an event.

Doubling: Students may compete in a max of THREE events (TWO Main Events and Congress or BQ) with the following limitations: students may do ONE Main Event debate (LD or PF); students may do ONE extemp (USX or FX); students may do ONE Main Event solo interp (DI, HI, or POI); students may do ONE prepared speech (OO or INF). Students may not double in debate or extemp or impromptu/creative storytelling within their wave, so if they are doing Congress, PF, LD, BQ, USX, IX, CST, IMP they may not do a second event in that wave.

Wave A: IX, USX, OO, BQ, DUO, CST, Congress

Wave B: PF, LD, DI, HI, POI, INFO, IMP, Congress

Fees: PF, LD, BQ- $15.00; DI, HI, OO, US, IX, INFO, POI– $10.00; DUO-$15; Congress–$6, Please make checks out to Colorado Grande NSDA. Remember, your school dues need to be paid to the NSDA for you to come to this tournament, but as it is so early in the year, individual students do NOT have to be members yet.

Committee Decision: As you know, we need coaches to run meets. We understand that December Saturdays are at a premium, but due to liability and other issues, your students cannot attend if you or another OFFICIAL coach from your school isn’t present. Each school must provide one OFFICIAL coach to work the tournament as a judge or worker in another area.

Registration: Registration will take place from 7:00 to 7:30 a.m. If you are running late, please text me to let me know if you have any drops.

Schedule: This is the basic schedule we will try to stick to; of course, if we can run things early, we will.

Round 1 A – 8:00
Round 1 B – 9:30
Round 2 A – 11:00
Round 2 B – 1:00
Round 3 A – 2:30
Round 3 B – 4:00
Awards 5:30

Congress: Legislation submission must be made by email (to owens@wsd3.org) by November 14. Please submit as either Word or Google Docs and be sure it is in the correct format including line numbers, etc. We will accept both federal and state legislation. You will need to email me Presiding Officer candidates by December 3. The number of chambers will be set so that each will hold about 14-18 congress persons so that students will have lots of opportunities to give speeches.

Awards: The purpose for this tournament is to give students an opportunity to “practice” procedures and rules BEFORE Nat Quals, so we will use the pairing rules that will be used at Nat Quals. As such, we will not run finals. Rather, students who place in the equivalent of finals and semis (if an event has enough entries that there would be semis at quals) after prelim rounds will receive ribbons.

Judges: Here’s the bottom line:

Anyone who enters an LDer must provide an LD judge. Anyone who enters PF must provide a PF judge.
In addition to the official coach on site, schools must provide 1 judge for every 2 debate entries and 1 judge for every 5 event entries. Failure to provide a judge will result in a $50 fine/judge. Note: the coach on site may cover 1 debate entry OR 2 event entries providing they are willing and available to judge.

We pay judges! They will be paid $10.00 per round.
Judges must be at least two years out of high school and must be trained.

Rules: Please remind your students that the rules for NSDA are different. That’s why we have a practice tournament. The major differences are highlighted below:

Files will be checked for extemp.
DI, HI, DUO, OO, INFO will be penalized for using a script; POI must use a script. Interp cuttings (other than POI) must come from only one source.
There is no poetry.
POI students must have a full, printed bibliography with them in each round and available for tournament officials.

Topics:

The topic for the Public Forum Debate is Resolved: The United States federal government should require technology companies to provide lawful access to encrypted communications.

The topic for LD is Resolved: The United States ought to rewild substantial tracts of land.

The topic for BQ is Resolved: Moral systems rooted in theism are preferable to non-theistic moral systems.

Food: As always lunch is provided for the coaches and the judges. Discovery Canyon Campus will have concessions available to purchase lunch.

Rebates: EXCITING NEWS! Dr. Mike Edmonds nominated us for a grant with the El Pomar Foundation this year which means we get to offer you rebates for ENTRY fees! This means that you will pay your entry fees for Rules as usual, but when Quals comes around, we will deduct the amount of entry fees you paid for Rules from the entry fees owed for Quals (congress will be deducted from congress and events/debate from events/debate). If you paid more at Rules, you won’t get a refund, and the rebate does NOT apply to judge fees for either Rules or Quals.

Can’t wait to see you all!

Stephanie Owen, Colorado Grande NSDA Chair