Dear Fellow Coaches,
Because of the collision of two forces fundamentally at odds with each other (Spring Vacation and the need for Lincoln-Douglas debaters to write two speeches ahead of time and learn a new activity), I would like to announce a new framework for our Larry A. Smith Invitational Tournament this year.

It will be essentially an Extemporaneous Pairs event with a few wrinkles, including two cross-examination periods (after the first two speeches, one per side) and modified speech times for Constructive and Rebuttal speeches, as follows:

Preliminaries (20 mins): Topic read, coin toss/sides picked, topic def (5 mins), prep time (10 mins)
First AFF 5 mins.
c-x 2.5 minutes (open cross-ex; second NEG leads)
First NEG 5 mins
c-x 2.5 minutes (open cross-ex; first AFF leads)
Second AFF 5 mins
Second NEG 5 mins

First NEG Rebuttal 3.5 mins
First AFF Rebuttal 3.5 mins.
Second NEG Rebuttal 3.5 mins
Second AFF Rebuttal 3.5 mins.

Prep time per side- 3 minutes

Three Rounds, three topics (straight resolution):
1) mid-east: Syria, ISIS, migrations
2) national election primaries (up-to-date topic)
3) school topic- athletics/extracurriculars

Please join us! I will need to have registration by Wednesday, March 30th. We are a smallish school, so will need to limit registrations to two sets of four per school (initially)- you may send twelve names, certainly, with the understanding that the third foursome will be on stand-by– both Advanced (Varsity) and Novice Divisions will be offered– Trophies offered through top three places in speaker and team results in both divisions–

Best Regards, Happy Spring (upcoming),
Bill Hunter
Hamden Hall
Debate Coach, 1985-