As you will recall, the discussion over the NFL’s practice of accepting money to sponsor (i.e. select) Public Forum Debate topic areas originated with a post by Jonathan Peele and was extended by a response from NFL Executive Director Scott Wunn. Comments continue to be added to those blog posts.

Discussion also continues beyond this blog. On his own blog, Jonathan Peele responded to Mr. Wunn. Mr. Peele has also posted that he has been removed from the topic selection committee and he believes it is because of his dissent. Stefan Bauschard has weighed in at Planet Debate with some solutions for generating better topics. Scott Phillips over at The 3NR is okay with the NFL accepting topic sponsorship money–for Public Forum Debate.

Not much has been said about previous Public Forum Debate topic sponsorships and no one has said how much money was received for those sponsorships. It is clear that the NFL accepted a $150,000 sponsorship from the Arthur N. Rupe Foundation and the foundation was allowed to select the topic areas for February, March, and April.

Despite a request from the NFL to remove reference to the Rupe Foundation in Peele’s original blog post (which we honored), the NFL is now touting its relationship with the foundation. Each Public Forum Debate qualifier to the NFL National Tournament is designated as a Rupe Scholar and receives a plaque. The NFL has also setup a special Web site to provide topic resources for February, March, and April and recognize the Rupe Scholars.

It is not easy to find much information about the Arthur N. Rupe Foundation. Art Rupe appears to have made his money in the recording and oil & gas industries. It should also be noted that in addition to selecting the the public unions topic for April, they also provided a grant to the Cato Institute for a special issue of the Cato Journal:

Dorn in 2010,
James A. Dorn. [Vice President for Academic Affairs, Cato Institute. Editor of the Cato Journal]. “Editor’s Note.” Cato Journal. 30(1). Winter 2010. http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cj30n1/ed_note.pdf. Accessed March 12, 2010.

This special issue of the Cato Journal was made possible by a generous grant from the Arthur N. Rupe Foundation. The question posed in this issue—Are Unions Good for America?—has both normative and positive aspects.

The Florida Manatee NFL District has qualified three teams to the NFL National Tournament in Kansas City.

Q: Fort Lauderdale: Matt Gold & Czar Bernstein
Q: University School: Danny Rego & James Stage
Q: Nova: Vanessa Rodriguez & Spencer Orlowski
A: Cypress Bay: Evan Schlossman & Daniel Levinson
A: Western: Zachary Glatzer & Jason Hannay
A: Cypress Bay: Dustin Slade & Chad Klitzman

The Northern Illinois NFL District has qualified two Public Forum Debate teams to the NFL National Tournament in Kansas City.

Q: New Trier: Joe Eichenbaum & David Walchak
Q: Glenbrook North: Josh & Adam Wolken

The Deep South NFL District has qualified four Public Forum Debate teams to the NFL National Tournament in June.

Q: Vestavia: Ross Pearlman & Rachel Conry
Q: The Altamont School: David Quinlan & Gates Porter
Q: St James: Amy Shannon & Courtney Meadows
Q: Ramsay: Jennifer Moore & Sydney Page

People are starting to talk about summer debate camps so I did a substantial edit of the Debate Camps page on the PFDebate Wiki. It looks like a few camps have disappeared and a couple of new ones have been added.

If you have factual corrections, please edit the wiki or use contact form on the blog. If you want to discuss debate camps, I encourage you to visit the PFDebate Forums. I know that several camp directors and instructors are actively participating in those threads.

Adam Badrawi & Christopher Winter from Ridge defeated Dhruv Sharma & Kevin Sullivan from Delbarton on a 2–1 decision to win the New Jersey state championship in Public Forum Debate.

Basking Ridge Patch as a story about the success of the Ridge forensics team at the state tournament.

Photo courtesy of Basking Ridge Patch.

The Inland Empire NFL District in Washington has qualified two Public Forum Debate teams to the NFL National Tournament in Kansas City.

Q: Mead: David Spivey & Wraith Snow
Q: Gonzaga Prep: Justin Jurkovac & Mack Foster
A: University: Conner Sabin & Jordan Welter
A: Lake City: Ben Cooper & Zack Schreiber

This past weekend The Harker School hosted the 2010 Harker Beak and Talon Round Robin and the Nichols Invitational.

Kurt Girard & Maggie Jackson from Centaurus (CO) defeated Carl Shan & Pargat Singh from Lynbrook on a 3–2 decision to win the Harker Beak and Talon Round Robin. The semifinalists were Akshay Jagadeesh & Rohan Bopardikar from Harker (CA) and Peter Nauka & Aakash Ghai from Saint Francis (CA). The top speaker was Miles Bridges from James Logan (CA).

Porter Nenon & Ramy El Kalioby from Myers Park (NC) defeated Priyanke Athavale & Meera Suresh from Lynbrook (CA) to win the Nichols Invitational. Also receiving TOC bids as semifinalists were Kimberly Kaiser & Saloni Gangal from Saint Francis (CA) and Daniel Porter & Madeline Karon from St. Paul Academy (MN). The top speaker was Porter Nenon from Myers Park (NC).

Lake Highland Preparatory School’s Danny Welch & Will Miller won the 2010 Florida Forensic League State Championship in Public Forum Debate. Welch & Miller defeated the team of Michael Strauser & Morgan Bell from Sarasota High School on a 3–2 decision. Lake Highland is coached by Mike Wascher. Sarasota is coached by Dr. Terri St-John.

Thirty-five teams competed for the coveted “Eagle” trophies that are given to the champions of the tournament which was held this year at University School on the campus of Nova Southeastern University in Ft. Lauderdale. After five preliminary rounds the top sixteen teams advanced to the octafinal round.

For Lake Highland’s Miller it was a return to the championship debate as he, with a different partner, finished second last year.

In the final round of Public Forum Debate, Ozan Cubukcu & Michael Gwin from Hawken School defeated Mark Pagano & Emma Shebat from Canfield High School to win the Ohio High School Speech League State Torunament.