The Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation is proud to announce the first annual Coolidge Presidents' Cup, a two-day debate tournament to be held on Saturday-Sunday, November 2-3, 2024, at Coolidge House in Washington, District of Columbia. We are excited to launch this second signature event of the Coolidge debate calendar!

Overview of the Tournament
Date: Saturday-Sunday, November 2-3, 2024
Times: A detailed schedule will be provided here by October 2. Attendees that are not local to Washington should plan to arrive on Friday evening. Tournament activities will begin at 8:00 AM on Saturday morning, with four rounds of preliminary competition scheduled for that day. Elimination rounds and awards will take place on Sunday morning, concluding no later than 1:30 PM.
Format: 2v2 Coolidge debate format.
Location: Coolidge House, 3425 Prospect St. NW, Washington, DC, 20007.
Eligibility: All high school students (currently enrolled in grades 9-12).
Cost: Free.
Registration: Registration closes Tuesday, October 29, at 11:59 PM EDT.
Judges: Volunteer citizen judges are provided; attendees have no requirement to provide judges but are encouraged to do so.
Attire: Business professional.

Resolution and Research Brief
The resolution for this tournament is Resolved: For the United States, the benefits of reducing its immigration levels outweigh the harms. A research brief will be posted here on or before September 19, 2024,for you to read and use. This is intended to help you in your preparation. You are not limited to the arguments or evidence in the brief. In fact, you are welcome and encouraged to use the brief as a starting point and build upon it by doing your own additional research and case writing.

Lodging
The Foundation has partnered with the Marriott Residence Inn - Arlington Rosslyn located at 1651 North Oak Street, Arlington, Virginia, 22209 as our recommended hotel. Their property is a one-mile walk from Coolidge House, so intrepid travelers could avoid ground transportation costs between check-in and check-out. The tournament rate of $137+tax can be booked here and is available for the nights of Friday, November 1, and Saturday, November 2, with competitive rates available for additional nights should you wish to extend your trip. If you have questions or need special assistance, please contact Jan'nelle Marshall, the hotel's Director of Sales and Marketing. The last day to book the tournament rate is Friday, October 4, 2024.

Tournament Overview and Structure
This is a two-day tournament with one Open (Varsity) division. All students grades 9 to 12 from any school are eligible to compete, including independent entries and homeschool students. You will begin Saturday with opening remarks from tournament officials and hosts. We will have four rounds of preliminary competition for all students on Saturday, with competitors paired randomly for round one, and paired high-low within brackets thereafter. To clarify, this means teams debate an opponent with the same win-loss record as their own from round two onwards.

The top eight teams (or fewer if insufficient teams have a 3-1 record or better) will advance to single-elimination competition on Sunday. We anticipate that finals and awards will conclude no later than 1:30 PM in order to facilitate return travel on Sunday evening.The top four teams will each receive an invitation to the 2025 Coolidge Cup, which is a national invitational speech and debate tournament sponsored by the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation and held in President Coolidge’s historic hometown of Plymouth, Vermont, on July 2-4, 2025. Learn more about the Coolidge Cup here.

Format and Style
Students will compete in the Coolidge 2v2 Debate format. If you are new to debating in this format, we highly recommend you review our Debate Guide, which provides information about this particular format, style, and rules. Maverick (individual) competitors are discouraged but permitted, although maverick entries cannot advance to elimination rounds. Consistent with Coolidge Debate, this tournament will recruit and use volunteer citizen judges. Schools are not required to provide judges for this tournament, but are encouraged to do so. Please ensure that any volunteer judges you recruit are familiar with the Coolidge format and its mission to remain accessible and persuasive for a broad civic audience.

Questions
If you have any questions about the tournament, the Coolidge Cup, or about judging, please contact Coolidge Foundation Debate Director, Jonathan Peele.