National Debate Tournament Records

Background on National Debate Tournament

The National Debate Tournament is one of the national championships for collegiate debating in the United States, seeking to exemplify excellence in scholarship, research, and argument. The Tournament originated at the United States Military Academy (West Point) in 1947, where it grew out of a dual desire among the Academy's leadership for extra-curricular activities for the cadets and for expanding offerings in the liberal arts. The concept of a national tournament was greeted avidly outside the Academy, so that when the first tournament was held, it included twenty-nine teams distributed in five seeding rounds and four elimination rounds over a three-day period.

During the early years, debate rules were set largely by West Point administrators -- particularly Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor and Col. G. A. Lincoln -- with input from well-known collegiate coaches such as A. Craig Baird (University of Iowa), G. M. Musgrave (Des Moines), Alan Nichols (Southern California), E. R. Nichols (Redlands), and Joseph O'Brien (Penn State). Since the American Forensic Association took over responsibility for the tournament in 1967, however, a committee elected by member schools has been charged with overseeing development, rules, and procedures. The tournament has grown steadily, reaching nearly eighty teams in 2015, and the debate venue has rotated to a different school each year, with a few sites hosted more than once. The member schools work closely with the national committee to select a single national question or resolution on a matter of current public concern that will be debated for the entire academic year.

Both eligibility to participate and the form of the debate have evolved over the years as the Tournament has grown in size. While teams could originally be admitted either by invitation or by winning a district tournament, qualifying tournaments have been added in most districts, along with both post-district and pre-district at-large bids.