SPRING CUP

Dear Coaches and Competitors,

We are thrilled to cordially invite you to the 3rd Annual Spring Cup hosted on March 15-16, 2025. We look forward to continuing our high-quality and affordable service, having now hosted 60 schools and 500 competitors within the last year.

The tournament will be a challenging yet rewarding competition opportunity for all levels of Public Forum debaters. There will be both MS and HS divisions on the NSDA February Topic. Your registration allows us to make a larger impact and a more competitive tournament experience for all. Please find below all the details regarding registration, tournament format, and fees.

Should you have any questions, please reach out to Nadia and Victor. We look forward to seeing you online in March and wish your team the best of luck in preparing for this season’s competition.

Entry Eligibility:

Middle School Public Forum: All entries must contain students that are in the 4th to 8th grade during the 2024-25 school year.
High School Public Forum: All entries must contain students that are in the 9th to 12th grade during the 2024-25 school year.

Judging Information:

Obligations:

Judges are expected to show up to their rounds at the start time. They are expected to submit their ballot within 75 minutes. If the judge fails to be timely, their school will be fined $400.
Judges must be available for all preliminary rounds, the first elimination round (likely octos), and one round past the round that their program’s last team drops in. For example, if no teams from a school break, then that school’s judges are obligated to adjudicate the first two elimination rounds. If a team from your school makes it to semifinals, judges must be available to judge until the final round.
Even if the judge does not receive a ballot for a particular round, they must remain on standby. You 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 go to a regularly assigned round and will be assessed the same fees.

Qualifications:

Our philosophy is that every judge you provide should be highly qualified. Highly qualified means your judge is a trained individual, who will actively listen to each debater’s arguments and carefully decide the round. The judge should not leave their computer or become unresponsive mid-round.
In order to judge in the HSPF division, the judge must have obtained, at minimum, a high school diploma. There are no exceptions to this rule.
In order to judge in the MSPF division, the judge must be at least a high school student. Preferably, any high school judge should have competitive experience or success in debate.
If a judge has been deemed unqualified, they will be promptly removed from the pool and their program fined $400. Unfortunately, even in the event in which a judge is deemed unqualified, the tournament cannot change the prior decisions made by that judge.

Conflicts:

A judge conflict occurs when a debater has a personal or professional relationship with the judge prior to the round. This would make it difficult for the judge to decide the round impartially. Judge conflicts must be disclosed; non-disclosure of judge conflicts is an ethical concern and creates competitive imbalances.
In the event that a judge and/or competitor reports a conflict after the pairing is distributed, the associated program 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 $1000 fine and risk all future tournament prospects.

Training:
If you are a new judge, please watch “How to Enter a Tabroom Ballot” (~6 minutes). While the layout of Tabroom has changed slightly since the publication of this video, we still find it helpful. Finally, there are many YouTube videos of actual debate rounds. We encourage you to watch them and practice judging said round.

Best Judging Practices:

Speaker Points: The tournament uses a 30-point speaker scale with tenths of a point and ties between debaters both permitted.
Paradigms: We encourage judges to write a paradigm and judging philosophy on Tabroom. This helps competitors and makes the round as accessible to you as possible.
Disclosure: Judges do not need to disclose their decision for prelim rounds, but it is strongly encouraged. On the other hand, the last-submitting judge must disclose the winner of an elimination round before dismissing all competitors.
Oral Critique: Each judge should then provide a brief oral “RFD” (reason for decision).

PF Rules & Conduct:

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

Topic: NSDA February 2025 – Resolved: The United States should accede to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

Coinflips: In all rounds, flip for side and order through Tabroom coinflip. Elimination rounds are not sidelocked. If a team’s flip time expires, then any competitor will be permitted to choose.

Forfeiture: Teams more than 10 minutes late to round will automatically forfeit. 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, please email Tabroom to report forfeits. Judges may not enter forfeits or byes under their own account.

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 Tabroom to report it.

Evidence & Source Integrity: Competitors must bring copies of all sources, including the full context of the citation. Upon request, competitors 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 NSDA rules. In the case of a round terminating evidence challenge, please email Tabroom to report it.

Walkovers: In the case that two teams from the same school hit one another due to an elimination bracket, the higher-seeded team will advance. In certain cases, the school can request for the teams to debate each other with a single judge.

Illness: If a debater becomes sick during the tournament, a school representative should contact the tournament staff. 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.

NSDA Campus:

Recording: To improve the quality of the round itself, all involved participants (competitors, judges, etc.) should turn their videos on. If a participant must remain off-camera due to internet issues or to enhance streaming quality, they should notify others. Moreover, for the privacy and protection of all, any recording of speeches is strictly prohibited. In some cases, a student may record their own speech via voice memo, but should promptly end the recording afterwards.

Platforms: For safety purposes, no rounds may switch to an alternative video platform other than NSDA Campus. If there is a technical issue with the software, please contact the tournament staff. 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 due to the nature of the event. The use of computers can be for flowing and research purposes, including retrieval of evidence stored on hard drives or resources via the internet. Students, 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 over at the University of Kentucky have some suggestions to improve internet connection to 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.

Code of Conduct:

The Spring Cup is committed to maintaining a healthy work environment where no participant or judge is discriminated against on the basis of their race, color, religion, gender, gender identity, ethnic origin, age, physical disability, sexual orientation, ancestry, place of birth, geography, or other aspect(s) of identity. 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.

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.
- Students are prohibited from seeking assistance during competition rounds, whether that assistance is acquired in-person or electronically.
- Once a round starts, students should only communicate with their partners, opponents, and/or judges.
Follow instructions of tournament officials and Tabroom staff to the best of their abilities.

All participants should not:

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

During the course of the tournament and its rounds, all participants may not engage in:

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

All debaters, coaches, judges, staff, and individuals present at the tournament or participating in its associated activities are expected to know and abide by this policy. Participants should further adhere to the policies and procedures of their own educational institutions, and abide by all local, state, and federal laws. Students found to have violated the above prohibitions will be removed from the tournament.

Coaches are the primary actors responsible for ensuring that their program’s individuals are compliant. Should any instance of discrimination, harassment, or similar arise, a responsible adult should fill out this form. Tabroom staff will respond in the quickest manner.

SPRING CUP

15-16 March 2025

Information

Entry Price

Tentative Schedule

Drop Fee

Contact Info

Registration Form

We would love to have you visit soon at one of our open houses.
Check our home page for the schedule!

School year Hours

Telephone

Email (preferred)

Locations

SPRING CUP

15-16 March 2025

Information

​Entry Price

Tentative Schedule

Drop Fee

Contact Info

Registration Form

We would love to have you visit soon at one of our open houses.Check our home page for the schedule!

School year Hours

Telephone

Email (preferred)

Locations

Entry Price

We would love to have you visit soon at one of our open houses.
Check our home page for the schedule!