Introduction to the Extemp Question Central National Points Race

The question that has often lingered in the minds of extempers across the nation, especially those who travel the national circuit, has been the question of who the top extemporaneous speaker in the nation has been for that particular season.  In some years, this question has easily been decided by a competitor who has won both the National Catholic Forensic League and National Forensic League national tournaments such as Kevin Troy’s pair of victories in 2005 and Akshar Rambachan’s victories last season.  However, the result that has often occurred is that a collection extempers have won the nation’s top national tournaments and this split provokes the question of who is best.

Although such questions will continue throughout this season and on into ones in the future, Extemp Question Central has introduced the “Extemp Question Central National Points Race” to give extempers some type of way to rank themselves against their opponents.  This points race will give points to competitors based on their performance at recognized national circuit tournaments, both national championship tournaments, and in tournaments that feature distinguished fields such as the Montgomery Bell Extemp Round Robin and the Extemporaneous Speaking Tournament of Champions at Northwestern University in May.  The purpose of the rankings may not exactly be to determine who the best extemper in the nation is, but it hopes to award consistent results by top extemporaneous speaking competitors across three different types of tournaments.

By the time the first issue of this magazine hits the Extemp Question Central website, the first major national circuit tournament of the year, the Wake Forest Early Bird will be nearing its conclusion.  This means that the first listing of this year’s rankings, for the 2008-2009 season, will appear in the next issue.  In each issue of The Ex-Files, this section of the magazine will feature updated points standings, all the way into the CFL and NFL National tournaments, and then giving a final recap with final standings that extemporaneous speaking competitors can look at across the country a week after the NFL National tournament concludes in Birmingham, Alabama in June.

It is Extemp Question Central’s hope that this ranking system will be monitored by the extemporaneous speaking community, and will attract more attention on extemporaneous speaking competitions around the country, especially at CFL and NFL Nationals.

How Does it Work?

The points system that will be used for the 2008-2009 season will give points to extempers based on their performance in three tiers of tournaments.  Only final round placings will count for tournaments, with the exception of CFL and NFL Nationals, where points will be allocated to competitors who place in the semi-finals.  The Ex-Files staff felt that such an allocation was appropriate due to the size of both national tournaments.  There is no limit to the amount of tournaments that count towards an extempers total during the season.  The point tiers, place a greater emphasis on tournaments with greater prestige and the points within each tier of tournament favor extempers who place highly, with a large discrepancy existing between first and sixth place.

The First Tier:  CFL and NFL Nationals

The first tier of tournament, and the ones with the most amount of points, are the CFL and NFL National tournaments.  These tournaments will likely decide who ends up on top of the rankings at the end of the season, because the point totals that extempers can accumulate at them is greater than the other two tiers.  The CFL and NFL tournaments are unique in the fact that they are the one tier where points are given to extempers who finish in the semi-finals as opposed to final rounds placings like the other two tiers.  These tournaments are also unique because the winner of the NFL final round in US Extemp and International Extemp receive twenty-five bonus points, which could make a great deal of difference in the rankings if the result ends up being close.

Here is a breakdown of the points offered to competitors from CFL and NFL Nationals:

As you can tell, the extemper who places first and comes into the tournament well behind in the total rankings could make a major leap over their competitors.  This point allocation was designed to make the CFL and NFL tournaments the most important tournaments on the calendar and to make them the “game changers” in the ranking system.

The Second Tier:  The “Skill” Level/Elite Invitational Tournaments

There are two major tournaments on the extemporaneous speaking calendar that require special qualification for entry and that carry much esteem in the extemp community:  the Montgomery Bell Extemporaneous Speaking Round Robin in Nashville, Tennessee in January, where sixteen of the nation’s best extempers are invited, and the Extemporaneous Speaking Tournament of Champions at Northwestern University in May.  Due to their competitive nature, as well as the qualification needed for entry, both tournaments were chosen by the staff to fall into the “second tier” of the rankings.  These tournaments will be worth less than the CFL and NFL National tournaments, but the winner will receive double the amount of points for a victory here than at the third tier of tournaments.

Sixth place will not be awarded at MBA due to the fact that the exhibition round only features the top five competitors.  Unlike CFL and NFL Nationals, there will be no bonus points awarded and there will be no points for competitors who fail to make the final rounds.

The Third Tier:  National Circuit Tournaments

This could be where some of the greatest controversy with this ranking system may exist.  Extemp Question Central had to make a judgment call concerning which ten tournaments to include in this tier.  The ten tournaments chosen, after much debate, were:

*The Wake Forest National Early Bird

*The Yale Invitational Tournament

*The University of Pennsylvania Liberty Bell Classic

*St. Mark’s Heart of Texas Invitational United States Extemporaneous Speaking Tournament

*St. Mark’s Heart of Texas Invitational International Extemporaneous Speaking Tournament

*The Glenbrooks Invitational Tournament

*George Mason Patriot Games Tournament (Invitational aspect only; not the Round Robin)

*The Barkley Forum for High Schools

*Harvard National High School Invitational Forensic Tournament

*2009 California Invitational Forensic Tournament

While there will be some controversy that competitors attending St. Mark’s get the opportunity for double points, because they can compete in both extemporaneous speaking categories, the quality of competition there over the years prompted the decision to give those tournaments the green light for counting.  Another debatable point was in deciding to only count the invitational portion of the George Mason Patriot Games, and not the round robin.  If there is one change to next year’s ranking system this may be it, with the possible move of the George Mason round robin to the second tier.  However, this move will be considered during the off-season after a new round of debate.

Points for the third tier are considerably less than the first two tiers, to account for the fact that some extempers are not able to go to a significant amount of national circuit tournaments and to prevent an extemper from accumulating too many points to be caught when taking the first two tiers of tournaments into consideration.  Points for the third tier also only award points to competitors who make final rounds, with no possibility of bonus points.

To get accurate rankings, Extemp Question Central will need contributions of results from all ten of the national circuit tournaments listed above.  If these are not forthcoming, then Extemp Question Central will be unable to count that tournaments towards its ranking system.  So please help us out!

Will There Be a Team Rankings System?

Yes, there will be a team rankings component built into the Extemp Question Central ranking system.  All extempers for a team will count towards a teams point totals throughout the year, with the winning team being recognized at the end of the season.

What Does the Winner of the Rankings at the End of the Year Receive?

The winning extemper and the winning team will receive trophies courtesy of Extemp Question Central.  The design has not been chosen yet, and Extemp Question Central welcomes suggestions.  However, there will be something for an extemper and team to have bragging rights to at the end of the season.

How Would Last Year’s Rankings Have Turned Out?

This is the biggest question many reading this section of the magazine may be asking.  To answer this question, Extemp Question Central went back to last year’s results, based on all of the tournaments listed above, and calculated the standings.

At the end of NFL Nationals last year, this was how the top 15 in the standings looked:

While it will cause some controversy that Akshar Rambachan did not end up at the top of the standings after winning both national tournaments, where he accumulated his entire point total, this reinforces how the Extemp National Points Race is just that, a race of extempers to acquire points at three different tiers of tournaments.  The Extemp Question Central National Points Race is simply an award of excellence across all three tiers of tournaments throughout the country and based on that formula, Becca Goldstein was the top point getter last year.  However, it is worth noting that Goldstein would not have beaten Rambachan in points if she had not managed to win the United States Extemporaneous Speaking national championship at NFL, becoming the first female extemper to do so since 1991, or place second.  Therefore, there was still a lot of intrigue surrounding NFL as far as how these points would have turned out based on final results.

As far as team rankings, here were the top ten:

Scarsdale High School in Scarsdale, New York, who had two extempers win two national circuit tournaments last year at Wake Forest and the Barkley Forum, won the points race, edging out Newton South High School in Newton, Massachusetts by a mere twenty-nine points.  Extemp Question Central hopes for another close and competitive race for the 2008-2009 season!

In Closing

As was stated earlier, the first round of rankings for the 2008-2009 season will be released in the next edition of The Ex-Files, slated for arrival before the St. Mark’s Heart of Texas Invitational Tournament.  These rankings will take into consideration the Wake Forest National Early Bird Tournament and The Yale Invitational Tournament, as long as those results can be provided to Extemp Question Central soon after those tournaments have finished.