Guide for Coaches New to MSDL Tournaments
Thank you for your hard work and dedication in starting or taking over an MSDL Forensics Program. Our tournaments run according to a common method that is sometimes hard for people to get down at first, even if they’ve coached before in another part of the country. This guide is intended to help step you through the process of registering for, and getting yourself through, the nitty gritty of an MSDL tournament. A lot of the rules and methods we’ve come up with are intended to make the day run smoothly; please let us know if you have any feedback.
You can download a copy of this guide here: Guide for Coaches New to MSDL Tournaments
Questions? Reach out to one of our New School liaisons:
PJ Wexler
Lindsay Donovan
MSDL Tournaments: A New User’s Guide
REGISTERING FOR TOURNAMENTS
Registration is done online from the League website, at tabroom.com
Create yourself an account and register your school as a chapter. If you are taking over from an old coach, check first with the League; there’s probably an old chapter already in existence, and you can save yourself entering your students’ names again if they’re already in the system.
The Schedule link on the website will list the league’s tournaments for each school year. You can click on each tournament’s name to get more information, download the tournament invitation, and see what the registration deadlines are.
Your registration of students and judges must be in by the deadline. You need to bring one judge for a certain number of students; usually this is 1 judge per 5 for Speech and Congress, 1 per 3 for LD and PF debate, and 1 per 2 for Policy. There are no judges for hire at typical MSDL tournaments, except for some debate tournaments; if you cannot bring judges you will not be able to enter students.
If a student drops out after the drop deadline (advertised in the invite), there will usually be a nuisance fee charged on top of the registration fee. For example, if registration is $8 and the nuisance fee is $5, you will therefore owe $13 to the tournament. Dropping a judge after the deadline causes all kinds of chaos and problems. Therefore, even if enough students drop out to lessen your judge burden, judge dropped after the deadline, or one who leaves a tournament early, may result in a $50 fine.
TOURNAMENT CALL IN
Remember to call the tournament phone number listed on the invitation the morning of the tournament before 8 AM. This applies whether or not you have drops. Checking in like this allows us to process changes and have registration ready by the time schools arrive on campus. If we have only one school not call in by 8:00, we cannot confirm our final schematics and the whole day gets delayed.
REGISTERING AT THE TOURNAMENT
When you arrive in the morning, the first thing to do is to register. The registration table is usually near the TAB room. Assuming all schools called in by 8:00 am, we will have registration packets available in the morning that will list out your student codes, your judges' codes, and your invoice. Please note that last minute adds may not be possible in all events.
This is also where you pay. Please pay attention to the invitation as to who to make checks out to; most times it will be the host school, but sometimes the MSDL itself runs tournaments, and you’d make the check out to them.
JUDGE BRIEFING & WHERE TO GO
New judges should go to the judges' briefing, usually at 8:30 or so. This will help introduce them to the running of the day and how things work. In addition, if you have new judges, you should have them read the Judges Handbook for their event ahead of time. The handbooks are available for download from the Resources section of the MSDL website. There are also short instructional videos available on the MSDL website that explain how to use our online balloting system and also introduce both speech and debate judging.
WHERE DO STUDENTS GO
Students usually gather in the cafeteria in the morning when they arrive and between rounds. If the tournament has a different location for students to assemble, they will let you know.
Once rounds are "blasted", students and judges will know which room to go to for each round of competition. Tabroom.com doesn't always text or email announcements, so it is a good idea to refresh the Tabroom.com browser on your phone, tablet or computer about 15 minutes before each round is scheduled in order to find out where to go.
Please note that we are often run three rounds of each speech event in four time slots, as we do not have room to run everything at once. So a student may have a time slot off. (Judges also may have a round off during the day). Students also should not compete in rooms where they are not listed; they may not get credit for speaking in the wrong room.
FINALS
After the last prelim rounds have concluded, final rounds will be announced and/or posted in the cafeteria. Judges should be on the lookout for a blast from Tabroom.com and should check their Tabroom accounts to find out what round they are judging. All judges must stay to judge final rounds. Remind your judges of this, since new judges sometimes wander off, causing chaos and havoc. Any missing judges for finals seriously upset the working on the tournament. At one-day tournaments, there are often final rounds in Public Forum Debate, but for other forms of debate it is common for there to be just four our five rounds for every student and then awards.
AWARDS
After all rounds conclude, awards will follow as soon as we have results. If you have any questions about how the day works, please let us know in Tab. There are always MSDL Board members in Tab who can answer any questions or provide advice to new coaches starting our activity.
You can download a copy of this guide here: Guide for Coaches New to MSDL Tournaments
Questions? Reach out to one of our New School liaisons:
PJ Wexler
Lindsay Donovan
MSDL Tournaments: A New User’s Guide
REGISTERING FOR TOURNAMENTS
Registration is done online from the League website, at tabroom.com
Create yourself an account and register your school as a chapter. If you are taking over from an old coach, check first with the League; there’s probably an old chapter already in existence, and you can save yourself entering your students’ names again if they’re already in the system.
The Schedule link on the website will list the league’s tournaments for each school year. You can click on each tournament’s name to get more information, download the tournament invitation, and see what the registration deadlines are.
Your registration of students and judges must be in by the deadline. You need to bring one judge for a certain number of students; usually this is 1 judge per 5 for Speech and Congress, 1 per 3 for LD and PF debate, and 1 per 2 for Policy. There are no judges for hire at typical MSDL tournaments, except for some debate tournaments; if you cannot bring judges you will not be able to enter students.
If a student drops out after the drop deadline (advertised in the invite), there will usually be a nuisance fee charged on top of the registration fee. For example, if registration is $8 and the nuisance fee is $5, you will therefore owe $13 to the tournament. Dropping a judge after the deadline causes all kinds of chaos and problems. Therefore, even if enough students drop out to lessen your judge burden, judge dropped after the deadline, or one who leaves a tournament early, may result in a $50 fine.
TOURNAMENT CALL IN
Remember to call the tournament phone number listed on the invitation the morning of the tournament before 8 AM. This applies whether or not you have drops. Checking in like this allows us to process changes and have registration ready by the time schools arrive on campus. If we have only one school not call in by 8:00, we cannot confirm our final schematics and the whole day gets delayed.
REGISTERING AT THE TOURNAMENT
When you arrive in the morning, the first thing to do is to register. The registration table is usually near the TAB room. Assuming all schools called in by 8:00 am, we will have registration packets available in the morning that will list out your student codes, your judges' codes, and your invoice. Please note that last minute adds may not be possible in all events.
This is also where you pay. Please pay attention to the invitation as to who to make checks out to; most times it will be the host school, but sometimes the MSDL itself runs tournaments, and you’d make the check out to them.
JUDGE BRIEFING & WHERE TO GO
New judges should go to the judges' briefing, usually at 8:30 or so. This will help introduce them to the running of the day and how things work. In addition, if you have new judges, you should have them read the Judges Handbook for their event ahead of time. The handbooks are available for download from the Resources section of the MSDL website. There are also short instructional videos available on the MSDL website that explain how to use our online balloting system and also introduce both speech and debate judging.
WHERE DO STUDENTS GO
Students usually gather in the cafeteria in the morning when they arrive and between rounds. If the tournament has a different location for students to assemble, they will let you know.
Once rounds are "blasted", students and judges will know which room to go to for each round of competition. Tabroom.com doesn't always text or email announcements, so it is a good idea to refresh the Tabroom.com browser on your phone, tablet or computer about 15 minutes before each round is scheduled in order to find out where to go.
Please note that we are often run three rounds of each speech event in four time slots, as we do not have room to run everything at once. So a student may have a time slot off. (Judges also may have a round off during the day). Students also should not compete in rooms where they are not listed; they may not get credit for speaking in the wrong room.
FINALS
After the last prelim rounds have concluded, final rounds will be announced and/or posted in the cafeteria. Judges should be on the lookout for a blast from Tabroom.com and should check their Tabroom accounts to find out what round they are judging. All judges must stay to judge final rounds. Remind your judges of this, since new judges sometimes wander off, causing chaos and havoc. Any missing judges for finals seriously upset the working on the tournament. At one-day tournaments, there are often final rounds in Public Forum Debate, but for other forms of debate it is common for there to be just four our five rounds for every student and then awards.
AWARDS
After all rounds conclude, awards will follow as soon as we have results. If you have any questions about how the day works, please let us know in Tab. There are always MSDL Board members in Tab who can answer any questions or provide advice to new coaches starting our activity.
