By Logan Scisco
This weekend extempers will converge on Omaha, Nebraska for the 2010 Catholic Forensic League Grand National tournament. Each year, Extemp Central provides an analysis of the topic areas that will be used at Catholic Forensic League and National Forensic League Nationals. These analyses are meant to help extempers identify issues that could arise during a round and offer a few tips on dealing with each topic area. Also, the analyses provide practice questions so that extempers can do practice outlines or speeches for each topic area before the tournament.
Before going into each topic area, it is important to give an overview of the tournament for extempers who have never been before. CFL Nationals takes place over two days, with four rounds of competition on each day. On the first day, four preliminary rounds are held and each round is adjudicated by three judges. The forty-eight extempers with the lowest cumulative scores advance to octo-finals the next day and the field is halved over another three rounds until a final field of six is set. All outrounds, with the exception of finals, are adjudicated by three judges. Finals has five judges. The tournament is not cumulative until finals. To determine the winner, CFL has an interesting formula where preliminary ranks do not matter (like NFL), and extempers earn a “rank” for octos, quarters, and semis. What this means is that if you go 1-2-2 and have the best score in your octo-final round you earn a 1 (and if you went (2-1-3 in that round and finished behind the speaker who earned a 1-2-2 you would earn a 2). All of the judges scores in finals count into your cumulative score so the extemper who has the lowest cumulative score across eight ballots wins. Keep in mind that with this formula it is important, but not necessarily vital, for you to win all of your elimination rounds. As an example, when I was in the 2003 CFL final round, I had finished third in my octofinal round and then second in quarters and semis. Other competitors in the round like the eventual winner Greg Wagman had won their octo, quarter, and semi rounds. Therefore, entering the final I was already four ranks behind. If you win all of your elimination rounds heading into the final you will have a slight advantage, but if you bomb the final round, where over sixty percent of your scores come from, then you won’t walk out of Omaha with the national championship.
I should also point out that to win CFL you really need to emphasize delivery over content. Sometimes I think good extempers would have a better chance navigating a Sri Lankan minefield than navigating the CFL judging pool because the standards of judging at the tournament are not the same as NFL. For example, in a semi-final round last year none of the judges knew how to give time signals in the event and the first speaker in the room received no time signals which might have cost them a spot in the final round. I’ve seen parents of interp kids given semi-final or finals ballots and they have no idea what the event is. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t have any problem with these people judging at the tournament. However, they should be judging prelims at best or the earliest elimination rounds at worst. Considering these circumstances, for any extempers attending the tournament I would suggest three things: don’t go fast, don’t stumble more than twice, and be as funny as possible. If there was ever a tournament designed for entertainment it is CFL Nationals.
If extempers check CFL’s website, www.ncfl.org, they will notice that there are nine topic areas listed. Astute extempers will note that my description of the tournament only listed eight rounds. Unlike NFL, CFL does not determine in advance what topic area will be in each round. Instead, the topic areas are randomly drawn prior to the rounds and advanced to the prep room. Extempers won’t have advance notice of what each topic area will be, so you have to be prepared for anything. Since there are only eight rounds, one of the topic areas won’t be utilized. Only three of the topic areas have a non-U.S. bent to them and the other five have more of a domestic focus (although the State Department round will likely function as a U.S. foreign policy round so it’s a mix of IX and USX). As I said last year, CFL Nationals tend to favor domestic extempers although IX’ers have had their fair share of success at this tournament before. However, if you lack a command of domestic issues your chances of winning the tournament are slim.
Before I analyze the topics the last piece of advice that I would give to any extemper out there is that in the week before the tournament sit down and identify what your strongest topic areas are and what your weakest topic areas are. After you have done this, read as much as you can on your weakest topic area and practice doing outlines and speeches with it. Don’t rely on hope that your weakest topic area won’t be drawn or that you can survive it in prelims and cruise through outrounds. The worst topic areas (i.e. “religion and philosophy” or “media and reporting”) always find their way into quarters, semis, and finals.