Hall of Fame Inductees

Elaine Fippin of Our Lady of the Elms and Tom Mosberger of GlenOak have been elected to the Hall of Fame Class of 2012. They will be inducted on Friday, March 2, at the 10:00 a.m. Opening Ceremony of State Tournament at Jackson High School.

District Tournament:

District Chairs will very soon be sending coaches information regarding the District Tournament. One of the important items of information relates to the Original Oratory Cover Sheet and the Prose Poetry Cover Sheet. Those cover sheets can be downloaded by going to State Tournament>Important Forms. They can also be found at Constitution>Appendices. Download the Revised Appendix L Original Oratory Cover Sheet and the Revised Appendix N Prose Poetry Cover Sheet. Coaches can also find the Congress Intent Form on the State Tournament>Important Forms page.

The January Legislation Docket is on the Invitations/Legislation page for downloading. Note: #21 doesn't exist and #33 must be "hand-numbered."

Time Schedules for the 2012 OHSSL State Tournament can be downloaded from State Tournament/Time Schedules tab.

The 2011 OHSSL Constitution & By-Laws, the 2011 OHSSL Tournament Events Manual, and the OHSSL District and State Tournaments Operations Manual can be found and downloaded from the Constitution Tab. These documents have been emailed to OHSSL coaches. Some highlights:

A. Although NFL has adopted an “automatic qualification to the National Tournament, there is NO automatic qualification to the OHSSL State Tournament.

B.) There is now a seeding option for District Tournament, if Districts want to seed. Each District must send its seeding plan to the League Office.

C.) Electronic devices may be used to store and retrieve information in the preparation room in IX and USX. Extempers must provide their own power sources. A reminder that debaters and Congresspersons have already been using electronic devices to store and retrieve information and to time speaking periods; NO contestant (or judges, for that matter) may access the Internet during a round of competition.

D.) In extemp, “the speaker must answer the exact question as written on the printed slip submitted to the judge.”

E.) In DUO, HI and DI, material “must come from a published source (a single ISBN number, web address, DVD, recording, etc.) Contestants must identify the author and source of the selection.”

F.) Jason Habig’s plan to eliminate run-offs in debate was approved as debate plan #6 in the Constitution, but alternates are not to be determined with this plan.

G.) The Executive Committee will assign a person or persons to scan and electronically distribute all debate decision cards within two weeks of the conclusion of the State Tournament.

H.) All schools recognized in the top ten in sweepstakes shall receive plaques.

I.) Cross-X in extemp will be conducted in the final round at State Tournament and it will be a three-minute back-and-forth period — i.e. more than one question will be asked and answered during the time limit.

J.) In all three areas of debate, “debaters who cite evidence during each round must be able to provide the evidence upon request.” 1) The words “upon request” are intended to mean precisely that. When evidence is requested, it should be produced promptly, but no later than immediately after the crossfire or cross-x when the request was made. The Committee hopes that debaters will adopt the good practice of having evidence well-organized and available for examination when requested. Debaters should not need to waste their own preparation time waiting for opponents to produce evidence. 2) Evidence requests must be initiated by debaters. If a piece of evidence is subject to significant dispute, the judge may ask to examine that evidence after the conclusion of the debate. 3) The importance of debaters’ failure to produce evidence is a matter for the judge to determine. Debaters are, of course, free to emphasize the impact of evidence omissions in their rebuttal speeches. 4)Coaches should provide instruction to their debaters on how to deal with abusive evidence requests or specious evidence claims on the part of their opponents. 5) As in the past, debaters who have concerns about evidence fabrication or intentional misconstruction should inform their coaches immediately after the round in which the incident occurred. Coaches should bring warranted concerns to their District Debate Committees, so that the committee can discuss the matter with the coach of the debater(s) in question. (Thanks to Rich Kawolics for writing this section.)

The final copy of the Constitution, including IE critiques and Judge Ballots and a Judge Instruction Guide will be on the web site by the end of October.

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE CHANGE

Trish Sanders, coach at Notre Dame HS and chairperson of the Executive Committee, resigned from the Executive Committee, effective July 26, 2011. Trish needs the time (normally spent on committee work) to concentrate on her family. She will continue to teach, coach the speech team, and direct the plays.

In accordance with the Constitution, the person who received the fifth highest number of votes in the May election was contacted about serving this third year of Trish's term; he declined. The person who received the sixth highest number of votes was then contacted; Eric Simione graciously agreed to serve this third year.

John Revezzo agreed to serve as chairperson of the Executive Committee for the 2011-2012 school year.

EXECUTIVE AND DISTRICT COMMITTEE INFORMATION
The Executive Committee for 2011-2012 and District Committees are listed under the About tab, as well as the dates for the Executive Committee meetings.

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NEW: Under State Tournament = an Archives page.
Find results for State Tournaments 2009-2011 on the Archives page. The goal is to scan results for previous years and add them to the Archives. This area is still a "work in progress," so bear with us as we juggle the pages.