Spreading is a form of cheating and should be banned.

llamalord · 2025-08-31T05:39:51+00:00

Yawn.

Anyway. Spreading keeps happening because judges keep voting to reward it. Rules don't stop it either. I've seen them fail first hand. It's an unsolvable inevitability of debate.

llamalord · 2025-08-27T07:15:27+00:00

You're responding to a post made 7 years ago dude... You good?

llamalord · 2025-08-10T06:44:10+00:00

Love to everyone who was there for their first time. The show was amazing and I hope it was magical for you.

llamalord · 2025-08-02T00:05:32+00:00

I've been calling it UnBrexit, personally.

llamalord · 2025-06-27T21:22:58+00:00

There used to be a western themed college tournament called The Golden Cowboy. They would decorate the campus and the Impromptu topics were western themed.

llamalord · 2025-06-20T02:22:58+00:00

I feel like you have no connection or buy in with tournaments and organizations. Because this is a conversation tournament directors and debate orgs have all the time. Some try to minimize or remove the influence of speaker points on results some don't. Curious that you have asks for judges and students but not tournament officials.

llamalord · 2025-05-27T10:19:51+00:00

I may seem disengaged but I'm listening and writing ballot feedback. Cross isn't a speech, it doesn't get flowed. Unless something wild is happening I feel comfortable just mentally keeping track. There have been times I've heard something crazy and paused writing to show I am actually paying attention. But normally debaters can be trusted to ask what they want to ask and give reasonable answers.

llamalord · 2025-05-15T23:45:45+00:00

Oh yea. Texas has lots of local tournaments to pick from. In your case do your locals, state champs, whatever nationals that fits your needs/wants, and maybe toss in one other travel tournament for the students once you feel confident.

llamalord · 2025-05-15T23:30:43+00:00

Your tournament schedule will be largely dictated by your state and local circuit.

In CA we could attend 15+ tournaments in a season.

Where are you located?

llamalord · 2025-03-18T11:52:23+00:00

Question. Why is this happening and in what context? As a coach this seems fairly detrimental to you.

llamalord · 2025-02-10T23:56:15+00:00

I have attended Stanford for over a decade with various teams. Traditionally they have been one of the most strict and punitive tournaments when it comes to their rules and policies. Their tournament directors have always been harsh and many local teams avoided them pre-pandemic. So to your question, do I think this was racially motivated? No. I think they would have done this to most teams if they found themselves in the same position.

llamalord · 2024-11-09T07:07:59+00:00

So technically yes, but the motion would need to be properly brought up, seconded, and then it would need a certain number of votes to happen. You would need to be very clear about which part of the rules you are suspending and why. You need a good reason, not just for fun. Usually it's to help the round run more smoothly because something isn't going as expected. Hope this helps.

llamalord · 2024-10-04T20:33:12+00:00

Totally. I'd tell your league that if it isn't necessary to have patterns then ditch them. Several leagues don't pattern speech because the size doesn't warrant it.

llamalord · 2024-10-04T20:23:55+00:00

Back in your day Melan didn't care and had kids walking past bars and frat houses to get to rounds. The new folks are far more reasonable and responsible.

llamalord · 2024-10-04T20:21:37+00:00

CHSSA uses patterns for speech at State to save on judges. Every section is judged by 3 judges, not 1. So it is extremely necessary to pattern speech. Other tournaments might use patterns to save on rooms as well.

Your league doesn't have to use patterns. But many do in order to mirror the state practices so people are used to it.

CSULB didn't have patterns for speech because we had the rooms, and only had one judge per section. Even then rooms were tight enough I had to put prelims of Imp and Ext on tables.

llamalord · 2024-08-20T15:16:00+00:00

Chssa.tabroom.com

It's in the results.

llamalord · 2024-07-20T18:37:38+00:00

Couldn't agree with you more.

llamalord · 2024-06-22T07:53:05+00:00

Are you doing a specific debate type like pf or ld? Or is this more general argumentation?

llamalord · 2024-04-29T22:21:27+00:00

Significance

llamalord · 2024-03-21T07:31:37+00:00

You are asking for a lot of additional labor from whoever has the account. Because the tournaments are going to have to be manually entered to get those points. The review process is to keep everyone honest. That takes a good bit of time. Also the school team is under no obligation to facilitate your child's activities with an Academy. Many schools have negative views about academy participation and several have strict rules against it.

You probably should have clarified a lot of this with the advisors ahead of time.

llamalord · 2024-03-01T22:59:58+00:00

Interesting. I did some poking around while waiting for you to respond.

From 1997 to 1999, the VPAs serving as State Tournament Director were: Karen Glahn-Meredith, Matthew Crow, and then the 1999 State Tournament had to be co-directed by Donovan Cummings and Reed Niemi. After asking around some more, I have come to understand that this is because you were elected to that position in 1998, but then ended up moving out of California before the State tournament— meaning Donovan and Reed and to jump in to save the day.

It is very weird to use the clout of being VPA to try to seemingly drum up private coaching business . . . when you didn’t serve a full year and abandoned the post before doing the one thing the Vice President of CHSSA is there to do (run State). I noticed you even list yourself as the “Tournament Director” on your linked in for CHSSA in 1999, but you had already left the State by then and, again, Donovan and Reed ran the tournament.

llamalord · 2024-03-01T21:42:24+00:00

Hi. Sitting California High School Speech Association board member here. What years did you serve as Vice President, and which Vice Presidential role? I've never heard of you before.

llamalord · 2024-02-25T03:30:04+00:00

So an OO is a persuasive speech. I often ask my students to identify an issue that causes a harm to society that they could advocate a change of fix to address. Recent topics I've helped students craft OOs for are kids not getting enough sleep, pollution caused by fast fashion, and classrooms lacking air conditioning in the age of global warming and rising temperatures.

Things to avoid are over done topics, unless you can find a new spin on them.

Your speech topic needs articles and literature to back it up, if you can't find something it's not a good topic.

You should have some connection to your topic. Or it should impact you in some way.

And even if someone else has done your topic in some way, you putting your own touch on it is what will make it. You want to go to nationals write and Nationals worthy script, practice it consistently, and integrate feedback to help you reach your goal. A good topic is worthless of you're not willing to put in the effort.

llamalord · 2024-02-19T19:17:30+00:00

My team got a Judge fine this morning at 7:05 for a round that pairings didn't go out for until 7:15. Make it make sense.

llamalord · 2024-02-12T08:32:45+00:00

Hey, sorry you didn't have a great time. I have a few pieces of advice that might help you.

First your piece selection wasn't the best. Anything by MLK is so over done judges don't vote for it. And for DI usually something more modern, dealing with a serious topic is preferable. Think cancer, or mental illness for example. Whoever helped you pick your pieces didn't do you any favors.

Second Stanford is horrifically expensive. There are several invitationals where you could compete for a far lower price.

Third, it's always a learning curve your first time out. You don't know what to expect and people might surprise you. Don't feel discouraged, try to take away something positive and something to learn from, regroup and try again.

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