With the national circuit season about to begin at the National Season Opener hosted by the University of Kentucky, Extemp Central wants to break down the structure of this year’s National Points Race.

The National Points was a competition that Extemp Central began during the 2008-2009 season.  It was inspired by the poker magazine Card Player.  The goal is to recognize the extemper that performed the best across a system of nationally recognized events during the season.  We recognize that any ranking system is problematic as some great extempers belong to teams that do not go to many, if any, national circuit competitions.  The National Points Race tries to weigh some of this by ranking post-season and major tournaments higher than regular season events, with the exception of Harvard, the biggest invitational tournament on the calendar.  The winner of the competition receives a trophy from Extemp Central, funded by the efforts of our generous readers and supporters.

Six extempers have won the National Points Race and curiously, no state has had a repeat winner.  Due to some interruptions of our service, we have not done the National Points Race since 2016, when it was won by Justin Graham of Trinity Preparatory School (FL).  Graham finished that season with a record 876 points in the standings.  We look forward to resuming the race this season.

Tournaments in this year’s National Points Race will be grouped into five tiers.  The points awarded for each champion are indicated by the team.  If readers want a breakdown of points for various placings, they can click here.  Note that NSDA Nationals will award different points for International Extemp and United States Extemp.  The category at the national tournament with the most participants in the top twenty-five in the standings prior to NSDA will receive a fifty point bonus to weight its competition level appropriately.  This will also impact point distributions for the final round, as NSDA recognizes a final round winner at its tournament since the national championship is awarded based on cumulative rankings.  The only change from past year’s is the reintroduction of the National Season Opener at UK as a fifth tier tournament due to better attendance in recent years.

These will be the events awarding points in this year’s National Points Race:

First tier (200/250 points to the winner + 40/50 points final round bonus):  NSDA National Tournament

Second tier (150 points):  MBA Extemp Round Robin, Harvard, and NCFL Nationals

Third tier (100 points):  Glenbrooks, George Mason University Patriot Games, the California Invitational, and the Extemporaneous Speaking Tournament of Champions (TOC)

Fourth tier (70 points):  The Yale Invitational, the University of Texas Longhorn Classic, the Sunvitational, the Barkley Forum, and the University of Kentucky Tournament of Champions (TOC)

Fifth tier (40 points):  The National Season Opener at the University of Kentucky, the New York City Invitational, Florida Blue Key, James Logan MLK Invitational, Marshall Speech Spectacular, and Stanford National Invitational

Sadly, this year marked the passing of someone who contributed to the formation of the Extemp Central National Points Race.  Sebastian Pyrek, a graduate of Danville High School (KY), who was a Kentucky’s 2008 state extemp champion in extemp and helped to instruct at Western Kentucky’s Summer Forensic Institute for several years from 2008-2011, played an integral role in helping structure the competition.  He also contributed several strategy pieces to this website over the years and judged at the Montgomery Bell Academy Extemp Round Robin several years after graduation.  We resume this year’s National Points Race in his memory.