The National Speech and Debate Tournament is a week-long high school championship forensics competition hosted by the National Forensic League (NFL). It is held annually in early June, and is hosted in a different part of the United States every year, although it tends to be hosted in cities that are amenable to the large influx of students and coaches, and have reasonably-priced accommodations.
Also called "Nationals" by many forensic competitors, the National Tournament involves competition between NFL competitors across the United States; thousands of competitors from across the country attend each year. The 2009 tournament was held in Birmingham, Alabama. The 2010 tournament took place in Kansas City, Missouri. The 2011 tournament took place in Dallas, Texas. A list of all the participants in the latest tournament (as well as several past tournaments), including the unofficial results, is available.
Read more about National Speech And Debate Tournament: Qualifying At The District Level, Competition At The National Tournament
Famous quotes containing the words national, speech and/or debate:
“Public speaking is done in the public tongue, the national or tribal language; and the language of our tribe is the men’s language. Of course women learn it. We’re not dumb. If you can tell Margaret Thatcher from Ronald Reagan, or Indira Gandhi from General Somoza, by anything they say, tell me how. This is a man’s world, so it talks a man’s language.”
—Ursula K. Le Guin (b. 1929)
“What is this conversation, now secular,
A speech not mine yet speaking for me in
The heaving jelly of my tribal air?
It rises in the throat, it climbs the tongue,
It perches there for secret tutelage....”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)
“A great deal of unnecessary worry is indulged in by theatregoers trying to understand what Bernard Shaw means. They are not satisfied to listen to a pleasantly written scene in which three or four clever people say clever things, but they need to purse their lips and scowl a little and debate as to whether Shaw meant the lines to be an attack on monogamy as an institution or a plea for manual training in the public school system.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)