Dear Coach and Debaters,

You are cordially invited to the virtual SME and SMW Debate Tournament on Friday, November 13 and Saturday, November 14, 2020. Varsity and Open will consist of 6 prelim debates (2 on Friday and 4 on Saturday). JV and Novice divisions will consist of 4 prelim debates on Saturday.

Varsity- this division is for your most competitive teams. We will have a variety of judges in this division. Most of them will be experienced community judges, former high school debaters, or current/former college debaters. We are not the DCI bid tournament, so if numbers are too small, we will combine varsity and open.

Open (KDC)- The name speaks for itself.

JV- This division is limited to 1st and 2nd year debaters only.  

Champ Novice- this is for your more competitive novices, and will not be bound to the KS novice case list.

Novice- this is the regular novice division and will be following the KS case list. Affs may only include one of the 5 areas (death penalty, mandatory minimums, juvenile sentencing, defund the police, decriminalize marijuana). All advantages and aff arguments must have answers in the novice negative packet. Negative arguments will be bound to those in the neg packet.        

Please enter at this link: http://smesmwdebate.tabroom.com  

You may request up to four teams total in any combination of the divisions. Your teams beyond 4 will be waitlisted unless we have a reciprocal agreement. Please prioritize your waitlisted teams on tabroom, or email me and let me know the preference. We will have to cap the total number of teams to 150. We will give entries and extras in the following order: 1) Reciprocal obligations, 2) Shawnee Mission schools, 3) EKNSDA schools, 4) those whose tournaments we have attended or plan on attending this year, 5) first come, first serve. The entry deadline is Friday, November 6th. Entries need to be finalized with names by Monday, Nov. 9th at the end of the day. Judges will be due, as well as drops, Wednesday at the end of the day.. Entries are not confirmed until removed from the waitlist.

Hope to see you on November 13th and 14th!

Sincerely,

Trey Witt

Director of Debate, SME

Rose Lawler

Director of Debate, SMW

SME/SMW DEBATE TOURNAMENT RULES AND PROCEDURES:

1)  The 2020-21 national policy resolution will be debated. 

2) We will be using the NSDA Campus platform.

3)  The tournament will be cross-examination style with 8-3-5 time limits. Prep time will be 8 minutes per round.

4) Schools will be required to enter judges. 1 judge per 4 teams, rounded up. Advanced debaters may judge in novice.

5) With the exception of extreme circumstances as determined by the tournament management, any team more than 10 minutes late to a round through no fault of the tournament will forfeit with a 3-4 loss. Students MUST attend the virtual check-in 30 minutes prior to each debate.

6) Tournament management reserves the right to handle difficulties in a way that seems fair to us. We will not be following discretionary KSHSAA rules. 

7) There will be 4 preliminary rounds in JV and Novice, 6 in Open and Varsity. Each team will be guaranteed half their debates on each side. Rounds 1 and 2 will be pre-set, all remaining rounds will be power-matched.

8) There will be a virtual awards ceremony (in some format) at the conclusion of the tournament.

9) Final placings will be based on W/L record, ranks, head to head winner, opp wins, opp ranks, coin flip.

10) Sweepstakes will be awarded to the top 3 schools, based on best 4 team record (at least 2 teams in Open or Varsity). As usual, there will also be a combined SME/SMW traveling sweeps trophy.

Tournament Schedule (pairings will be 45 minutes before each round time, and the mandatory check-in will be 30 minutes prior to the round start time).

Friday, November 13

Registration: 2:30 pm

Round 1 Open/Varsity: 4:00 pm

Round 2 Open/Varsity: 6:30 pm

Saturday, November 14

Round 3 Open/Varsity, Round 1 JV/Novice: 8:00 am

Round 4 Open/Varsity, Round 2 JV/Novice: 10:30am

Round 5 Open/Varsity, Round 3 JV/Novice: 1:30pm

Round 6 Open/Varsity, Round 4 JV/Novice: 4:00pm    

Awards: ASAP (between 6 and 7pm)