Qualifier Watch

About NFL Nationals

Nationals, which is sponsored by the National Forensic League, will be held this June in the Grapevine/Colleyville School District outside Dallas, Texas.

A more complete history of Nationals will be available here at Qualifier Watch shortly. In the meantime, enjoy this short retrospective on Lincoln-Douglas Debate, “Regional Strength at Nationals and on the ‘National Circuit’: A History” written by Jon Cruz and Victor Jih.

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LD debate debuted in the 1979-1980 season; thus, this year’s winner will be the twenty-sixth National Champion in Lincoln-Douglas Debate.

No one who has won the Tournament of Champions has ever won Nationals. Only one school has won the TOC and Nationals in Lincoln-Douglas in the same year: Minnesota’s Edina High School, coached by Mike Bietz, became the first school to do so in 2004.

Only one school has won Nationals in Lincoln-Douglas more than once: Alabama’s Vestavia Hills High School, coached by Marilee Dukes and Jason Baldwin, captured both the 1994 and 1998 titles.

1980 | Mary Ambrose (Omaha Marion High School, NE)
1981 | Oscar Cantu (Churchill High School, TX)
1982 | Melissa Obegi (The Marlborough School, CA)
1983 | James Kincaid, Jr. (Tulsa Washington High School, OK)
1984 | David Yalof (Bronx High School of Science, NY)
1985 | Patrick Bannon (Regis High School, NY)
1986 | John Wertheim (St. Michael’s High School, NM)
1987 | Bailey Irwin (West Charlotte High School, NC)
1988 | Anoop Mishra (Homewood High School, AL)
1989 | Rob Berry (Battle Ground Academy, TN)
1990 | Shalini Ramanathan (Newman Smith High School, TX)
1991 | Thomas Marlowe (Chesterton High School, IN)
1992 | Jay Steed (Providence High School, NC)
1993 | Matthew Whitley (Central High School, TX)
1994 | Claire Carmen (Vestavia Hills High School, AL)
1995 | Justin Osofsky (Isidore Newman High School, LA)
1996 | Dan Vukelich (Benilde-St. Margaret’s High School, MN)
1997 | Marc Wallenstein (The Greenhill School, TX)
1998 | Allison Pickett (Vestavia Hills High School, AL)
1999 | Steve Davis (Des Moines-Roosevelt High School, IA)
2000 | Adam Preiss (Monte Vista High School, CA)
2001 | Maya Babu (Eagan High School, MN)
2002 | Oscar Shine (El Cerrito High School, CA)
2003 | Adam Chilton (Mountain View High School, AZ)
2004 | Jed Glickstein (Edina High School, MN)
2005 | Tara Tedrow (Celebration High School, FL)

It was New York in the 80s. Alabama in the 90s. What state dominates now?

Texas leads all states in the number of national champions to its credit; debaters from Texas won Nationals in 1981, 1990, 1993, and 1997. It has also been a dominant player on the national circuit since the inception of the TOC: Texans have appeared in late outrounds - including the final round - of the TOC consistently since 1986. This year, David Wolfish of the Greenhill School became the first-ever Texan TOC champion.

In the first decade of Lincoln-Douglas, national debate dominance was concentrated in the Northeast, and more specifically, in New York. The Bronx High School of Science and Regis High School won numerous prestigious titles nationally, including the Tournament of Champions, the Barkley Forum, Harvard, and others; Bronx Science remains the only team ever to close out the TOC. Congratulations to coaches Richard B. Sodikow of Bronx Science and Eric DiMichele of Regis for their accomplishments!

Florida also fielded some of the country’s most competitive teams. Dale McCall — alternatively called the “Queen of LD” and the “Mother of LD” — coached some of the activity’s earliest dominant debaters at both Twin Lakes High School and Wellington High School. While she coached a TOC champion (in 1978), her programs did not claim the national title during the activity’s first decade.

Dominance moved to the Deep South in the following decade: Vestavia Hills High School was unquestionably the debate powerhouse of the 1990s. In addition to winning Nationals in 1994 and 1998, and having the third and fifth place debaters in 1999, Vestavia won the TOC in 1993 and 1997, and had the second place debaters in 1992, 1995, and 1999. Of course, Vestavia was not the only strong school of the 1990s; many other schools consistently fielded strong, nationally competitive debaters. Iowa’s Valley High School, for example, had debaters in the final round of the TOC four times in a row, winning it three times (1996, 1998, 1999) and placing second once (1997).

So, which state is the “debate state” of the 2000s? Answering this question can sometimes spark contentious debate, which is certainly not our intention; fortunately for us, we don’t have to answer it, because many believe that the jury is still out! At the moment, we can only truly guess what state will win the championship this year when we know who is in the final round.