Hon. Thomas S Foley Tournament

Better settle in and grab a cup of coffee. This one is going to be long, and I’m not even going to apologize.

Nine years ago right about now, my team in Montana won state by a margin of 1.5 points. I believe it is still the smallest margin in the long, rich and dramatic Montana Forensics history. It made for a great story about how every bit of effort counts.

Today, I can tell a better story. It’s the story of a tenth of a point.

Last Thursday we pulled away from Chiawana at 11:30 a.m. with 14 students (conflict with Solo and Ensemble cut our numbers), and a bus full of excitement, dread, and hope.

Every speech tournament means long days, but The Hon. Thomas Foley Memorial Tournament, hosted by University High School in Spokane takes it to a whole different level. I liken it to the Ironman Triathlon. Thursday is the bicycling portion, with two rounds of debate and Sparfest, a round-robin of Spontaneous Argument, a just-for-fun debate with topics like “Star Trek is better than Star Wars,” or “Your coach is better than my coach.” We stagger to the hotel at about 10 p.m.

Friday is the swimming portion. The day begins at 7 a.m. with Student Congress and International Diplomacy, an event unique to this tournament in which students debate in French, Spanish, or German and represent various political parties of those countries. Both Congress and ID conclude with a final session. Then, in the afternoon, it’s two more rounds of debate and the first round of speech, and hope you’re in bed by midnight.

Finally, Saturday is the marathon. We begin at 7:30, and there is one more preliminary round of debate, two more of speech, the elimination rounds of debate, and a final round of speech. Awards start at about 11 p.m. and last for about 90 minutes, because there are so very many awards to give.

This tournament also offers events that are only found there—more on those later.

For those who really want to test themselves, there is the Foley Award. To achieve this award, a student must enter in Congress and debate and four speech events. The winner is determined by how many speaker points they receive in their preliminary rounds. To win this, students can’t be specialists; they must be good at everything. Speaker Tom Foley’s widow, Heather, is usually on hand to award the prize, although this year she was in the Caribbean.

If you’ve been following our team for very long, you know that we have some very talented students, and three of them entered into competition for the Foley award.

We had our ups and downs, times we felt we were cheated by the judges, and times we felt lucky just to be alive. Our crew of four alumni judges made it possible for Sara and me to coach a little more than we sometimes can, because having them there meant that we didn’t have to judge debate and congress and could take care of our kids. There’s not a lot we can do for the kids when they’re actually in a round, but in between there is often a lot of the psychological part of coaching—helping kids to shake off a bad round, make adjustments for the next round, or not to become over-confident if a round goes well. When we are competing outside our own district, I don’t get to help in the tab room, so I am as blind as the kids are as to just how things are going.

We were not without potential disasters. A computer glitch meant that Isaiah Moore wasn’t properly entered in Interpretive Reading, and we had to do a little groveling and arguing to get him in (please look at his rank below to see how happy we are that it worked). Baylee Easterday realized after her first round of Political Impromptu that, while it had sounded perfect for her, it wasn’t, and she never wanted to do it again. But she was going for the Foley Award, so she had to do it again. But compared to last year, when we battled a blizzard, and I lost most of my judges to stomach flu right before the tournament, it was a piece of cake.

One of the highlights of the tournament—one we’ll talk about for a long, long time—was the traditional beginning of the awards ceremony: Spar finals, featuring our own Isaiah Moore. I’m not sure I’ve laughed that hard in a long time, and I invite you to watch it on our YouTube channel here (it is in two parts): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2icizFReZv4iQggWLPyj3g?view_as=subscriber

Now that I’ve built suspense, it’s time to tell you how we did:

·         Team: Second Place Small (under 15 competitors) Teams (Note: We were fourth overall of 24 teams)

·         Open Spar:

o   First Place: Isaiah Moore

o   Third Place: Ford Powers

·         Debate Speaking Awards (given regardless of win/loss record, based on speaking ability in the debate):

o   Big Questions Top Speaker: Jacob Talsmat

o   Big Questions 3^rd Speaker: Trevor Schmitt

o   Big Questions 8^th Speaker: Saige Johnson

·         Big Questions Debate: 1^st Place, Trevor Schmitt

·         Open Public Forum Debate: Quarter Finalists, Baylee Easterday and Linh Truong

·         International Diplomacy: UN Security Council/Spanish, Nathaly Mendoza

·         Champs Congress: Baylee Easterday, 3^rd Place

·         Junior Varsity Congress: Linh Truong, 4^th Place

·         Open Dramatic Interpretation: Monica Winn, 3^rd Place

·         Open Dual Interpretation: Caleb Hernandez and Ford Powers, 4^th Place

·         Open Editorial Commentary: Caleb Hernandez, 6^th Place

·         Novice Expository Speaking: Phuong Nguyen, 1^st Place (Phuong is an exchange student from Vietnam.)

·         Open Expository Speaking: Malene Garcia, 3^rd Place

·         Open Extemporaneous Speaking: Baylee Easterday, 1^st Place

·         Open Tall Tales: Trevor Schmitt, 4^th Place

·         Legal Argument: Baylee Easterday, 1^st Place (The special prize for this event was a Black’s Law Dictionary, with an engraved plate on the cover noting the occasion. Baylee plans on law school, so she really wanted to win this. The judges were all local attorneys and judges, and one wrote on her ballot—underlined several times— “Go to law school!”)

·         Dual Improvisation: Ford Powers and Caleb Hernandez, 2^nd Place

·         Open Humorous Interpretation: Ford Powers, 4^th Place

·         Novice Impromptu Speaking: Linh Truong, 1^st Place

·         Open Impromptu Speaking:

o   Baylee Easterday, 1^st Place

o   Trevor Schmitt, 4^th Place

·         Novice Interpretive Reading: Linh Truong, 4^th Place

·         Open Interpretive Reading: Isaiah Moore, 1^st Place

·         Political Impromptu: Baylee Easterday, 3^rd Place

In addition to the Foley Award, the tournament features another special award in memory of a University High School alumna who never woke up one morning for a tournament. This award is for students who exemplify the spirit of debate, whether or not they are the best. I am proud to say that Malene Garcia was a finalist for this award.

Which brings us back to how I opened this very long story: a tenth of a point.

That’s the margin with which Baylee Easterday won the Foley Award. She received a granite plaque, and her name will be engraved on a permanent plaque at the Federal Building in Spokane.

You might have thought from reading this that I’m not too bad with words, but I cannot adequately express my pride in this group of students. Every one of them is remarkable. We laughed and cried our way through this awards ceremony.

On February 16-17 we will have Regionals in Yakima. It is not ridiculous to state that we have the potential for a regional champion in all but one event (we don’t have any competitors in Lincoln Douglas debate).

Following that, we are hosting the Inland Empire National Qualifying Tournament at Chiawana on February 22-24. I am, quite frankly, frightened by the number of students who could qualify for Nationals. The fundraising is mind boggling.

Thank you for all your support. Please congratulate these students—they richly deserve it. Feel free to follow us on Twitter (@hawktawkchs) or Facebook (Chiawana Speech and Debate).