Tournaments

The students on the Acton Boxborough Regional High School Speech and Debate team compete at both local (sponsored and/or sanctioned by the Massachusetts Speech and Debate League or MSDL for short) and National Circuit tournaments (generally outside of New England).  Tournament schedules and information are found primarily on tabroom.com.  

• Our team tournament schedule is TBD for 2023/34.

• The MSDL Guide to Online Tournaments is here.

Tournaments take place primarily on Saturdays but can include Friday afternoon and Sunday in some cases. A typical trip to a local school requires students to be on the bus by 7am and we typically arrive back at AB by 7:30 - 8:30pm - a full day committment.   Students will compete in 3 to 6 preliminary rounds of their event(s) and potentially break to outrounds (number varies by tournament).  After the final rounds, which all students are encouraged to watch live, an awards ceremony finishes the day with an opportunity for the community of students, parents, alumni and coaches to recognize the finalists in each event.  In an online environment, schedules would be a bit different, based on number of time zones, number of participants and number of out rounds offered. 

The MSDL is governed by a board of coaches from schools in Massachusetts.  You can read more about the MSDL here.  In May or early June, the board, among other agenda items, sets the schedule for the following academic year by accepting tournament requests from area high schools and colleges.  The MSDL also sets the date for the season opening Novice Tournament and the State Championship tournaments in late March/early April.  ABRHS has hosted the Speech and Congress or Debate Championships for 8 years as of 2023. In 2020, the MSDL became the first state league in the U.S. to host all events completely live online at MSDL State Championships in May 2020. 

The process for students to earn the right to compete at the State Championships is below:

• In order to participate in State Finals in speech events, a student must qualify by earning two bids in their event at MSDL sanctioned tournaments during the season. In order to earn one bid, a student must have a cumulative rank score of 9 or less in preliminary rounds in an event or compete in finals.  In Novice Extemp, students with cumulative rank of 9 or less earn a 1/2 bid towards States and must earn one bid in the Varsity division to attend States (there is no Novice Division at the State Championships). 

•  PF and LD Debaters must have a winning record (more wins than losses) in at least one MSDL sanctioned tournament during the season in order to participate in States with the partner the bid was earned with.  For instance, a 2 Win/2 Loss record would not earn a bid, but a 3 Win/2 Loss record would - most tournaments try very hard to have that 5th round. There are a few other ways to qualify for States - please refer to the MSDL Rules and Policies document page 36.

• Congressional Debate students must rank in the top 6 in their chamber after two sessions regardless of total number of participants or break to the Super Session final chamber.  

• Each school team is given wild card bids (2 in Speech/Congress, 2 in Debate) which can be given out to students who did not earn enough bids outright.  The coach and captains reserve the right to determine who the bids will be offered to with seniority and previous competition/attendance as two of the factors considered.   With a large team like ours, it is not possible to guarantee that any individual will be able to qualify in a given year.  

Tournaments outside of our State are usually considered National Circuit tournaments in that they draw students from beyond the local geographic area of the host institution.   They are often run by College/University Debate teams as fundraisers and sometimes by large public/private high schools. They generally use the rules for events offered by the NSDA.  These tournaments are not in the jurisdiction of the MSDL. Some of these tournaments do offer bids to the University of Kentucky's Tournament of Champions, held in late April, to the top tier of competitors in each event area.  See the individual tournament invitations for details.  

Due to our already very busy local tournament season, I do not travel with the team to most Nat. Circuit events. The lack of funds for coach travel and the simple fact that, as the only adult on stipend by AB to supervise the team, I simply don't have the time to give above and beyond the work I do now means that these events must be chaperoned by CORI cleared parents.

Trips to Nat. Circuit events are considered independent trips, not officially sanctioned by ABRHS.  That means no AB permission forms and oversight.  The one exception for AB is the Harvard Invitational.

Parents are asked to get CORI cleared as all institutions now expect that adults working with underage students will be.   Tournaments may have other requirements of students (sometimes a form is needed to be signed by the principal attesting to the fact that there is no objection to the students competing independently or a parental permission form (Yale is noted for this)).  I created this document to clarify my limited role in the planning of these trips.

Some recent tournament trips:  Yale (Oct.), NYC Invitational at Bronx Science(Oct.), Princeton (Dec.), UPenn (Feb.), Tournament of Champions (April).  

Finally, ABRHS students may decide to attend qualifying tournaments for the two season ending National Championships sponsored by the National Speech and Debate Association and the National Catholic Forensic League respectively.  In late January/early February each local chapter of the two national groups sponsors a qualifying tournament for their league's events.  

For the NSDA New England District qualifier (date TBA), students must be members with with the degree of Merit or higher.   Membership costs $20 (lifetime) and can be paid at any time up to two weeks before the qualifier.  Each member school is limited in how many entries per event we may bring, to ensure fairness for all program sizes. Generally, upperclassmen will take preference.  This year the NSDA National Championships take place in the third week of June 2023 in Phoenix, Arizona.  

For the NCFL Boston Diocese qualifier, held in conjunction with the Central Mass. Diocese qualifier (essentially the MSDL split in two), students do not need individual memberships and can enter based on the available slots per event, seniority and coach's recommendation.   The NCFL Grand National Tournament will be held in Louisville, KY over Memorial Day Weekend  in 2023. 

Traditionally, the coach has traveled with the students for groups of 4 or more students to these National Tournaments.  School policy dictates that at least one other CORI cleared adult be with the group on the trip, and often, because of judging quotas, we have more parents/alumni/siblings to cover our entries and chaperon.  If your student is considering trying to qualify for one or both of these tournaments, please consider if you would be able to travel with us should they be successful.