NFL District Tournament

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NFL District Tournaments are held each year by the National Forensic League to determine the qualifiers to the National Speech and Debate Tournament in speech, debate, and Student Congress. Each district tournament is hosted by an NFL District, which is made up of a set of schools in a given geographic region.

Like many tournaments of the National Forensic League, District Tournaments are annual tournaments. Competitors only have 1 shot at gaining National Qualification.

[edit] Eligibility

According to the NFL District Manual, District Tournaments do require some form of eligibility towards the National Tournament. In order to participate at any District Tournament, a competitor must:

Be an NFL Official Member: The Competitor must have at least 25 Points, and have supplied the $10 membership Fee
Have no more than 9 Semesters of Secondary Education: The Competitor must have graduated from Middle School, or Junior High, on a timely fashion of 6-7 Semesters.
Met the State Age and Eligibility Requirements of Competition: Each district in a given State has age Requirements. However many of them accept ages 13-19. It is important that the Competitor have the recommended Age Requirement.

If the Competitor has met these District Requirements, then he or she is Eligible to participate in the District Tournament.

[edit] Entry Limits

Because the District Tournament is a possible qualifier of the Largest Tournament, Nationals, it has entry limits on all Students. According to the NFL District Manual, the following are the entry limits on all events:

Speaking/Acting Events: Speaking or Acting events such as: Original Oratory, Foreign Extemporaneous Speaking, Domestic Extemporaneous Speaking, Humorous Interpretation, Dramatic Interpretation, and Duet Acting require no more than 4 Competitors or Teams from each Participating District School.
Debate: Each of the Debate Events such as: Lincoln-Douglas, and Cross Examination require no more than 4 Debaters competing in either event from any Participating District School.

There are no exceptions to this Rule. A Participating School must ensure their Team Capacity has met the Entry Limits, in order to confidently Participate at District.

[edit] National Qualifying

In debate events (Policy, PFD, and LD), qualifiers are determined by a double-elimination tournament which runs until the number of debaters left in the tournament is the same as the number of qualifying slots.

In speaking events (the various flavors of extemp and interp), several power-protected preliminary rounds are followed by semifinal and final rounds. The total scores over the course of the tournament (including the semifinal and final rounds, which have more judges than the earlier rounds) determine the national qualifiers from the final round. "Power-protected" means that the competitors in each round (after the first, which is paired randomly) are selected such that a gradient of low-scoring and high-scoring students are included in each round (in other words, the top competitors at any point in the tournament are "protected" from competing against one another).

In Student Congress, the district tournament is often held separately from the speech and debate competitions. (In Western Ohio, for instance, it is held a month later.) In congress, a panel of judges votes on the national qualifiers, and one Representative from each House and the two top Senators in the Senate qualify to Nationals.