Thirty-seventh Annual
St. Thomas More Cougar Classic
Speech and Debate Tournament

January 11-12, 2019

Welcome to another year of great competition.  This tournament is one of the largest in the state of Louisiana and as always, we will offer two divisions of all individual events (excluding Program Oral Interp), duet and duo.  We also offer novice and advanced divisions of Policy and Lincoln Douglas debate as well as an open division of Public Forum.  This year we will offer DUO INTERP in senior division and DUO READING in junior division.  

In Individual Events, students are allowed to enter up to three events.  However, students are not able to enter both debate and team acting events.

We ask that an official representative of your school attend registration. 

The coaches, students and parents of the Cougar Speech and Debate Team are looking forward to seeing you at this year's tournament. 

All events will be governed by the Louisiana High School Speech League guidelines with the addition of a thirty-second grace period in Individual Events, Duet Acting, and Duo.  Consult your manual for further instructions. 

JUDGES

Please submit your list of qualified judges prior to the start of the tournament.  Each school is required to have judges to meet the following quota:

Individual Events - one judge for every seven entries

Duet & Duo - one judge for every five teams

Debate - one judge for every three entries

 ENTRY FEES

Fees will be $12.00 for each duet or duo entry or policy or public forum debate team and $6.00 for each individual event entry and LD debate entry.  Registration deadline can be found on the website.

THE DEBATE TOURNAMENT

DIVISIONS

            Advanced Policy Debate (open to all levels of experience)

            Novice Policy Debate (open to first-year debaters)

            Advanced Lincoln-Douglas (open to all levels of experience)

            Novice Lincoln-Douglas (open to first-year debaters)

            Public Forum Debate (open to all levels of experience)

PUBLIC FORUM WILL NOT FLIP FOR SIDES

SPEECH TIMES

Policy debates will follow the 8-3-5 format with eight minutes of prep time.

Lincoln-Douglas debates will follow the 6-3-7-3-4-6-3 format with four minutes of prep time.

TABULATION

This will be a cumulative tournament for Individual Events, Duet, and Duo.  Seven ballot ranks will be combined to determine the final rankings in each event. 

We are planning to offer two preliminary rounds of all individual events.  However, we reserve the right to hold a quarter-final round in place of round two on Friday evening if more than twenty-eight participants are entered in an event.