ELOQUENCE SPRING

Dear Coaches, Debaters, and Parents,

We are thrilled to invite you to the 4th Annual Spring Cup hosted on March 14-15, 2026.

Having hosted 8 online tournaments with attendance from over 75 programs and 800 participants, we are confident in our ability to provide a high-quality, fair, and timely competitive experience. We are equally committed to maintaining a tournament that is affordable and accessible to all. As in previous years, the tournament will be entirely online. Once again, we will be offering 2 events in High School Public Forum and Middle School Public Forum, both on the NSDA February Topic. Participants at all levels will find their space in these divisions, growing in a competitive yet highly rewarding environment.

However, we have made some key changes based on feedback from last year’s tournaments, which are detailed below.

First, we will attempt to clear at least half, if not all, 3-2 records, in service of providing students with a more comprehensive competitive experience. 4-1 and 5-0 records will continue to clear. Our current schedule is located here. In order to hold these additional elimination rounds, we will need the support of a robust judging pool and a commitment from everyone involved!

Second, our charity partner is Feeding America, which fights food insecurity throughout America and beyond with a network of more than 200 foodbanks, serving 46 million people nationwide. We will donate 50% of excess tournament revenue to Feeding America. Your registration deepens our collective impact, and we are pleased to work with such an inspiring organization.

Generally, we follow all competitive procedures and standard practices used by national circuit debate tournaments. However, we invite you to read through the invitation packet below and navigate the document sections on the left-hand side for more specific details. Should you have any questions, please reach out to Nadia and Victor. Otherwise, we look forward to seeing you online in March and wish your team the best of luck in preparing for this season’s competition!

Respectfully,
Spring Cup Team

Entry Eligibility:

Middle School Public Forum: All entries must contain students that are in the 4th to 8th grade during the 2025-26 school year.
High School Public Forum: All entries must contain students that are in the 9th to 12th grade during the 2025-26 school year.
Mavericks: Maverick entries are accepted at the Spring Cup. Judges should not vote down a solo debater purely on the basis that they are debating by themself. Conversely, judges should not vote for a team specifically because they are debating by themself.

PF Rules & Conduct:

Speech Times: 4-4-3-4-4-3-3-3-3-2-2 (3 minutes of prep time)

Topic: NSDA February 2026

Coinflips: Online coinflips will be released through Tabroom 7 minutes after pairings. The winning team of the online coinflip will be offered 5 minutes to select either their side (affirmative or negative) or speaking order (1st or 2nd). Subsequently, the losing team of the coinflip can make their selection in the other category within 5 minutes. If both teams’ flip time expires, positions will be selected at random by Tabroom. Elimination rounds are not sidelocked, and a fresh coinflip will occur for every round.

Forfeiture: Teams experiencing what they believe to be a legitimate delay should make every attempt to communicate with Tabroom that they are going to be late. Otherwise, teams more than 10 minutes late to round will automatically forfeit the round. The judge or a program representative from the team that was present should email [email protected] to report forfeits. Judges may not enter forfeits or byes under their own accounts.

Tech Time: Each team will be allotted 10 minutes of tech time. As soon as a technical issue that impedes the round occurs, tech time will begin. If more than 10 minutes pass, it is a tech time failure resulting in forfeiture. In that case, the judge should email [email protected] to report it. Judges may not enter forfeits or byes under their own accounts.

Evidence & Source Integrity: Participants must bring copies of all sources, including the full context of the citation. Upon request, participants must make these sources available to their opponent(s) and judge, whether during or after the round. Debate entries failing to do so may be disqualified at the tournament’s discretion. Evidence challenges will match standard National Speech & Debate Association (NSDA) rules. In the case of a round terminating evidence challenge, the judge should email [email protected] to report it. Judges may not enter forfeits or byes under their own accounts.

Generative Artificial Intelligence (“AI”): Spring Cup acknowledges the potentially significant educational benefits that generative AI tools can have, while at the same time, has concerns about potential hindrances it can introduce to learning. Participants may only use AI as a guide to find articles, ideas, and sources, while understanding that AI does not always produce accurate or complete information, and results can include fictional people, places, facts, or events. An original source of any quoted or paraphrased evidence must still be available, and generative AI may not be cited as a source.

Walkovers: In the case that two teams from the same program are paired against one another in the bracket, the higher-seeded team will advance. If the two teams are paired against one another in the finals, then they will be deemed co-champions. However, in either instance, a program representative may request for the teams to debate with a single judge by emailing [email protected]. If a tournament judge is unavailable, the program is encouraged to hold their own debate internally and email [email protected] stating which team should advance at least 10 minutes before the pairings are released for the subsequent round.

Illness: If a debater becomes sick during the tournament, a program representative should email [email protected]. The non-ill debater will be permitted to debate in future rounds by themselves, including into the elimination bracket. In this case, judges will be instructed to provide the same speaker score to both the ill and non-ill debater.

Awards: Spring Cup appreciates the dedication of all participants, viewing the event as a celebration of critical thinking, public speaking, and argumentation as well as a culmination of months of preparation and hard work. Spring Cup further celebrates all teams that reach elimination rounds and the top 10 speakers in each division.

Structure of Tournament:
Spring Cup follows a similar tournament structure as other national circuit debate tournaments.

Regardless of their competitive record or performance, all teams will compete in five prelimination rounds. The final three prelimination rounds will be “power-paired” based on teams’ existing cumulative records. For example, in Round 4, 3-0 teams will debate other 3-0 teams, 2-1 teams will debate other 2-1 teams, and so forth. All prelimination rounds will pair teams from different schools against one another, and a team will not have a given judge in multiple prelimination rounds. These processes foster a consistent baseline experience, offer a guaranteed number of distinct full-length debates, and ensure teams face appropriately challenging opposition as the tournament progresses.

Teams with a record of 5-0 and 4-1 will always be moved into the elimination bracket. If necessary, adjustments will be made to the schedule mid-tournament to ensure all 4-1s can clear. Spring Cup anticipates clearing at least the top half of teams that finish 3-2. Please note that there are several variables that affect this, including the concentration of 4-1s and 5-0s, the availability of judges, and the schedule and pace of prelimination rounds. Ties will be broken based on record, adjusted points, total points, double-adjusted points, judge variance, opponent wins, and flip of a coin, in that order.

Elimination rounds will consist of single-elimination debates, in which the losing team is eliminated from the tournament and the winning team advances to the next round. Elimination rounds will continue until a tournament champion is determined. All elimination rounds will use a panel of three judges, where the team that earns the majority of votes (or at least two votes), will be deemed the winner. Teams may debate judges or other teams they have already interacted with in prelimination rounds.

Judging Information:

Obligations:
Judges must be available for all prelimination rounds, the first elimination round, and one round past the round in which their program’s last team loses. For example, if no teams from a program clear, then, based on the current schedule, that program’s judges would be obligated to judge rounds through to the quarterfinals.

Qualifications:
Our philosophy is that every judge you provide should be highly qualified. Judges do not need to know the intricacies of debate, but they must be eager to learn. All judges must be fluent or have professional working proficiency in English and commit to actively listening to each debater’s arguments and carefully deciding the round. The judge should not leave their computer or become unresponsive mid-round.

In order to judge High School Public Forum, a judge must have obtained, at minimum, a high school diploma or GED. There are no exceptions to this rule.
In order to judge Middle School Public Forum, a judge must have obtained, at minimum, a middle school diploma. High school judges should have competitive success in debate.

If a judge has been deemed unqualified, they will be promptly removed from the pool and the affiliation of the judge fined $400. If a judge is deemed unqualified during the tournament, Tabroom will consider on a case-by-case basis whether to remove their prior voting record and provide all teams that they judged with byes.

Training:
New judges must watch “How to Enter a Tabroom Ballot” (~6 minutes). Since the publication of this video, the layout of Tabroom has changed, but minimally. Additionally, there are many recordings of actual debate rounds posted on YouTube. We encourage all judges to watch and practice judging these rounds, including writing out a decision.

Spring Cup uses a speaker point scale from 25 through 30 with smaller gradations of 0.1. An average speaker should be awarded 28.5. 25 should be reserved for truly problematic speakers, including if a participant made a racist or discriminatory comment during the round. 30 should be offered in the rare case in which a speaker far surpassed all expectations. From there, judges are welcome to adjust up and down along smaller gradations. Spring Cup discourages judges from awarding speaker points on the basis of an external factor beyond the speaking style and round strategy of the participants. Examples of external factors would include asking participants to purchase the judge something or tell a joke for higher speaker points.

Expectations:
When a pairing is released, we recommend that all judges click on their email in the top-right corner of Tabroom. Occasionally, Tabroom will fail to send text or email notifications.

Any assigned judges are then expected to signal readiness by hitting “START” as quickly as possible. Judges should press “START” even if they are not imminently ready to judge or are still missing competitors. The button represents an acknowledgement of receipt of the ballot rather than a confirmation that the round has actually begun.

Judges are expected to join the NSDA Campus rooms for their rounds at least 5 minutes before the start time. They are required to submit their ballot within 60 minutes. However, judges are strongly encouraged to submit their ballot with a winner and speaker points as soon as the round is over. They can subsequently return to the ballot, elaborate on their reasoning with more detail, and add individual feedback for each competitor. However, the Spring Cup must know the winners of previous rounds in order to pair late prelimination and elimination rounds.

Judges need not orally disclose their decision to participants during prelimination rounds. However, time-permitting, oral critique is strongly encouraged and provides participants with substantive feedback to improve within the duration of the tournament. On the other hand, in an elimination round, after each judge decides independently, the last-submitting judge must disclose the overall winner. Then, all individual judges must specify how they voted to confirm the panel decision. Each judge should briefly provide an oral Reason for Decision (“RFD”) before dismissing participants.

Even if the judge does not receive a ballot for a particular round, they must remain on standby. The judge may be used as a “substitute” if another judge does not show up to their round. Failure to appear for stand assignments is viewed akin to failing to attend a regularly assigned round.

Paradigms:
We strongly encourage judges to write a paradigm on Tabroom about their judging philosophy or experience. Strong paradigms should identify the judge, their background, their experience with debate, and any preferences in speech or argumentation. A clear paradigm helps participants adapt their arguments and makes the round as accessible as possible. Spring Cup does not offer strike sheets or preference-based judging.

Judges must recognize that participants come from different backgrounds and socioeconomic statuses. Specifically, judges may experience cultural differences including eye contact and gaze, gestures, and vocal qualifiers (volume, pitch, rhythm, tone, tempo, etc.). Judges should be culturally responsive, accept differences in students’ background, values, vocabulary, and goals, and be aptly aware of their conscious and unconscious biases that may influence their decision.

Judge Fines:
If the judge fails to be timely—to the round, in submitting their ballot, or in appearing for a standby assignment—the affiliation of that judge will be fined $400. Our $400 fine is markedly higher than most tournaments and previous iterations of Spring Cup, and intentionally so. In previous years, a more lax policy and a lack of enforcement led many programs to trivialize their judging responsibilities. The new fine will be strictly enforced.

Conflicts:
A judge conflict occurs when a participant has a personal or professional relationship with the judge prior to the round, regardless of whether the judge is filling the obligation of entry. Judge conflicts make it difficult for the judge to decide the round impartially, compromise the competitive integrity of the tournament, and raise ethical concerns. As a result, all judge conflicts must be disclosed by email to Nadia and Victor before the tournament.

In the event that a judge and/or participant reports a conflict after the pairing is distributed, the affiliation of that entry will be assessed a $400 fine. In the event that a conflict is willingly ignored and taken advantage of, the affiliation of that entry will be assessed a $1,000 fine and risk all future tournament prospects.

NSDA Campus
Platform: NSDA Campus is an affordable, secure, and easy-to-use video platform for hosting virtual speech and debate tournaments. Links to the appropriate NSDA Campus videoconferencing rooms will appear as a link next to the round pairing on a participant’s Tabroom account. Participants are expected to be familiar with the features of the platform before the tournament begins. They can test out an NSDA Campus room on their Tabroom account or consult their program for guidance. Improper use or inability to use NSDA Campus during rounds will count as tech time. Technical issues or outages in NSDA Campus are controlled by the National Speech & Debate Association and should be addressed by reviewing the relevant Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) on their website.

Student Recording: For the privacy and protection of all, any recording of speeches is strictly prohibited. The sole exception is that a participant may record the audio of their own speech via voice memo, but should promptly end the recording afterwards.

Microphones: The only person who should have their microphone on is the active speaker. Everyone else should mute their microphone during a speech. Be aware that cross-examination periods have the greatest risk of degraded audio. Competitors will have to adapt from their experience in a live tournament and try to minimize crosstalk.

Cameras: To improve the quality of the round itself and foster a sense of community, all individuals (participants, judges, etc.) are strongly encouraged to turn their videos on. If a participant must remain off-camera due to internet issues or to enhance streaming quality, they should notify others.

Platforms: For safety purposes, no rounds may switch to an alternate video platform other than NSDA Campus. If there is a technical issue with the software, please contact Spring Cup. The tournament will provide specific, tournament-monitored Zoom rooms for such rounds.

Use of Technology: Use of laptop computers, tablet computers, smart phones, and other electronic devices is permitted during debate rounds. The use of computers can be for flowing and research purposes, including retrieval of evidence stored on hard drives or resources via the internet. Participants, however, should not use electronic devices to initiate or respond to contact with outside parties, including coaches, during a debate session.

Internet & Wi-Fi Connection: Our friends at the University of Kentucky have some suggestions to improve internet connection and ensure a smooth online round.

Reboot the Router: If you’ve experienced connectivity issues, you may want to reboot your router before your next video meeting, which flushes its stale connections.
Adjust Your Position: To maximize signal quality, you must do one of two things: move the router or move yourself. The closer you are to your router, the better your signal quality. Just like any other radio device, Wi-Fi routers have a particular range.
Update Your Router: Routers don’t just magically come with perfect firmware straight out of the assembly line. Chances are your manufacturer is going to notice some bugs that impede your ability to communicate effectively. Wi-Fi suffers the most from this because its standards are always being revised and a vast number of features exist that are not present in Ethernet. Look through your device manufacturer’s website and ensure that you have the latest firmware for your router.
Enable WME/WMM: If you bought a router that advertises itself as being optimized for video and VoIP, you’ll likely find an option somewhere within its configuration interface that allows you to enable Wireless Multimedia Extensions (WME) or Wi-Fi Multimedia (WMM). These are two terms used to describe an interoperability feature within some routers that puts a higher priority on media transmissions than on other data. It means that your router will put aside transmission of other packet data in favor of your video and audio transmissions. For more information, refer to your router’s manual.

Technology Troubleshooting: Our friends at the University of Kentucky have some suggestions to troubleshoot difficult technology situations.

The biggest culprit is likely your internet. You should compete plugged into your router via ethernet. You should think and talk with your family about minimizing disruptions during competition time in your home. You may consider buying a longer ethernet cord so you can occupy a quieter section of your home.
No one should prepare during any tech downtime.
If someone is the active speaker, they should take more care to ensure that someone does not lose connection mid-speech. Pausing a speech and then resuming after someone re-connects is the simplest way to resolve technology issues.
If you are a non-active speaker, you should only attempt to pause the active speaker if you have suffered a significant degradation of audio that persists for more than mere seconds. 1 second of latency does not warrant pausing a speech. Losing all audio completely warrants alerting your partner to get the speech paused etc.
Unplugging USB devices like microphones or cameras then plugging back in usually fixes most issues.
Exiting and reentering the room fixes some issues.

Releases
Program representatives, as part of agreeing to the registration disclaimer, should inform their participants, including judges and students at the tournament or participating in its associated activities, of the following releases.

Media Release: I hereby give Spring Cup permission to take photographs and recordings of me or photographs in which I may be involved with others for the purpose of promotion. I am aware that photos and recordings may be used for print and online promotional purposes and may be shared on public social networking sites. Additionally, Spring Cup may share my photo with affiliate organizations to be used in their promotional venues. I hereby release and discharge Spring Cup from any and all claims arising out of use of the photos. This authorization is continuous and may only be withdrawn by my specific rescission of this authorization.

Liability: Spring Cup operates in school environments which can be unpredictable and may produce situations that are outside Spring Cup’s control. You acknowledge that you are voluntarily participating in Spring Cup. You understand this is a complete release of liability and a promise not to sue or make a claim, and you sign it freely and voluntarily. This authorization is continuous and may only be withdrawn by my specific rescission of this authorization.

Code of Conduct
All participants, including coaches, judges, and students at the tournament or participating in its associated activities, are expected to know and abide by the following code of conduct. Participants should further adhere to the policies and procedures of their own programs as well as local, state, and federal laws. Communication or conduct which engenders ill-will and disrespect for others ultimately reduces the utility of the tournament for all who participate in it and should, therefore, be avoided. Participants found to have violated the prohibitions will be removed from the tournament.

All participants should:

Act towards others in a way that embodies dignity, respect, and moral values, refraining from undermining the integrity of speech and debate as an institution.
Act in good faith and preserve the competitive integrity of the Spring Cup.
- Participants are prohibited from seeking assistance during competition rounds, whether that assistance is acquired in-person or electronically.
- Once a round starts, participants should only communicate with their partners, opponents, and/or judges.
Follow instructions of tournament officials to the best of their abilities.

All participants may not engage in:

Seek, nor encourage others to seek any unfair advantage.
Harass or bully others, including creating safety and security risks for other participants.

Purchase, transfer, use, or sale of alcohol containers, drug-related paraphernalia, including but not limited to anabolic steroids, marijuana, synthetic cannabis, or other mood altering substances (ie. K2, Spice, herbal incense, or herbal smoking blends), cocaine, narcotics, LSD, amphetamines, or other illegal, unprescribed drugs
Misuse of prescription medicines, over-the-counter drugs, aerosol products, or substances used as hallucinogenic, including the transfer or sale of such materials
Hate speech or actions
Theft, including taking items without payment
Repeated instances of failing to respect others’ boundaries

Discrimination & Harassment Policy:
Discrimination is adverse treatment based on one or more of the protected categories of persons to which an individual belongs, rather than on the basis of their individual merit, with respect to the terms, conditions, or privileges of participation. The Spring Cup is committed to maintaining a healthy work environment where no participant is discriminated against on the basis of their race; color; creed or religion; national origin; alienage or citizenship status; gender; pregnancy; gender identity and expression; age; disability; sexual orientation; partnership status; medical condition (including having or being perceived as having HIV/AIDS-related conditions); marital status; caregiver status; familial status; sexual and reproductive health decisions; genetic information or predisposing genetic characteristic; status as a victim of domestic violence, sex offenses, or stalking; military status; unemployment status; credit history; record of prior arrest or conviction; height; weight; or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law.

Spring Cup does not tolerate harassment of individuals for any reason as harassment can be destructive to a healthy community. harassment includes easily identifiable acts, including verbal, written, or physical abuse. It also entails more subtle, but equally damaging forms, such as epithetics, stereotypical remarks, insults, or mislabeled “humor.”

Equity Complaint Form:
Coaches are the primary actors responsible for ensuring that their program’s individuals are compliant. Should any instance of discrimination or harassment arise, a program representative should fill out this Equity Complaint Form. Spring Cup will review all responses with the utmost care, attention, and confidentiality. Serious allegations will be directed and decided upon with consultation from the Tournament Community Wellbeing and Belonging Taskforce.

The taskforce aims to respond to all equity complaints by the end of the tournament. Resolutions will be sent to the email provided on the Equity Complaint Form.

ELOQUENCE SPRING CUP

14-15 March 2026

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