Lincoln Douglas Debate Online Option

We want to balance the ideal of an in-person event with a moderate amount of online accommodation, both for the benefit of competitors for whom online works best, and for our program, which benefits from a bump in LD numbers at our home tournament.

At the same time, we want to respect the efforts of those programs who make the effort to join us in person by maintaining as far as possible the in-person nature of the event.

To those ends, we will allow limited online entry according to the following guidelines:

1. Online entry is by application only. Until you’ve submitted your request and been approved, do not plan on competing online. See below for more details.

2. No more than 10% of the pool, and no more than 15 total competitors, will be online. We will begin by admitting 6 online competitors and will admit an additional online entry as the total number of entries reaches 70, 80, and so forth. If we top 150 entries, we will admit 15 online debaters and we’ll stop there (though we’re unlikely to hit 160, so that probably won’t matter.)

3. No more than 2 online entries from any one school will be accepted.

4. Online entries must attend a school that is more than six hours’ driving distance from West Des Moines. If there are any “close calls” we’ll let Google Maps be the arbiter of this distinction.

5. Online entries must hire out their judging from the tournament. We will not have any online judges, and we do not want entries who won’t be joining us to be hoovering up the local judging talent that we would prefer to hire ourselves.
   
   

If you want to enter online, do the following:

1. Submit your entry to the waitlist, as normal
   
   

2. Pay your entry fees ASAP by using our online payment system
   
   

3. Once you have entered and paid, contact us via email at valleymidamericacup@gmail.com; tell us the name(s) and school of the student(s) (up to two per school) who wish to enter online.
   
   

4. ASAP, we will respond and let you know if: (a) we are able to let you in the tournament as an online entry immediately; or (b) if you have been waitlisted for online entry, and if so, where you stand on the waitlist.

If you are waitlisted for online entry, you can elect to wait, to withdraw your entry, or to switch to in-person entry. If you elect to withdraw entry, we will refund your entry fee payment as soon as possible.

MAIN PAGE 2025

Our tournament email address is

valleymidamericacup@gmail.com

Welcome to the website for the 2024 West Des Moines Valley Mid America Cup. We host varsity/open divisions in Lincoln-Douglas, Policy, and Public Forum. We are also offering, once again, the Sophomore Throw-Down LD round robin, open to excellent competitors in their second year (sophomore year) of high school.

Lincoln-Douglas debate will take place in-person in West Des Moines, with a limited online option. If you are interested in attending online, please see the separate page with instructions for applying.

Policy and Public Forum debate will take place entirely online.

This year, the Valley Mid America Cup will take place at Valley Southwoods Freshman High School in West Des Moines, Iowa. Valley Southwoods is located at 625 S. 35th Street, West Des Moines, IA 50265. Valley Southwoods is located about a mile from Valley High School.

The MAC offers TOC bids at the octofinals level in Lincoln-Douglas and at the semifinals level in Policy and Public Forum. Our tournament will use the relevant NSDA topics in all divisions and except where noted will enforce NSDA rules.

The Sophomore Throw-Down will take place on Friday, September 26. The tournament proper will take place Saturday-Monday, September 27-29, with quarterfinals - finals taking place on Monday.

Fees

Policy debate: $95/policy pair

Public Forum: $70/PF pair

Lincoln-Douglas: $100/debater

Sophomore Throw-Down: $130/entry

We require payment before any entries are accepted. All entries will be waitlisted until payment is received.

We will host three divisions: Varsity LD, Varsity Policy, and Varsity Public Forum,

• Varsity LD will be in-person with a limited online option (see instructions on main Tabroom page)

• Varsity Policy and Public Forum will be online.

The Sophomore Throw-Down

You are invited to nominate your top sophomore LD debater to compete in the Sophomore Throw-Down. We will accept up to 16 entries. The Throw-Down has historically brought together some of the nation's best rising varsity debaters for competitive and collegial rounds including great food and lovely awards.

The Throw-Down is in-person only.

Hired Judge Fees

A limited number of hired judges are available. Judges can only be hired once your team has left the waitlist, so please pay your fees in a timely manner. The cost for hiring a policy or PF judge is $145 per round of coverage. The cost for hiring an LD judge is $115 per round of coverage.

Round Robin Judging

Round robin entries are expected to provide one experienced judge to cover each entry.

Judging Notes

In Policy and Public Forum, teams owe four rounds of judging for the first entry and two rounds of judging for the second entry; one "full" judge covers two entries, but the minimum commitment is four rounds. The same applies to third and fourth entries, fifth and sixth entries, and so on. Public Forum debate will not be flighted.

In Lincoln-Douglas, which will be double-flighted, the round requirements per entry are:

1 entry ..... 3 rounds

2 entries ..... 4 rounds

3 entries ..... 6 rounds

4 entries ..... 9 rounds

5 entries ..... 10 rounds

6 entries ..... 12 rounds

7 entries ….. 15 rounds

8 entries ….. 16 rounds

9 entries ….. 18 rounds

... and so forth.

The purpose of this is to ensure that we have enough committed judging rounds to provide high quality preferenced judging while maintaining the “one judge per three debaters” standard.