NFL, no not the National Football League, but National Forensic League

History

Founded May 25, 1925, the NFL hosted the first national high school speech tournament in 1930 with 49 schools from 17 states. By and large the rules that governed that tournament are still in effect today providing one of the longest running national competitions for high school students. Approximately 1 million high school students have been members of the NFL since 1925. Well over 30,000 high school students participate in NFL certified events every year. The National Tournament for 2006 was held in Grapevine, Texas.

 Events

Each year, the NFL hosts the National Speech and Debate Tournament. This tournament attracts over 3000 high school students who compete for national honors in a wide variety of events. These events include:

All the above events are NFL-sponsored events which one can compete in at the NFL National Tournament.

 The Rostrum

The Rostrum is the official monthly magazine of the National Forensic League. The magazine was originally titled the Bulletin, which was first published in 1926. Since its creation, the Rostrum has evolved into a forum for debate education and news, soliciting articles from coaches and debaters. The Rostrum is a popular place for debate camps and brief companies to place their advertisements supporting the magazine. The Rostrum is free to all NFL members, and also contains information on results from the national tournament, opinion pieces on the evolving debate world, and strategy tips for debaters.

Points

Double-ruby award pin earned with 500 points. The sterling silver pin is 1 inch (2.5 cm) tall.
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Double-ruby award pin earned with 500 points. The sterling silver pin is 1 inch (2.5 cm) tall.

Those who participate in competitive forensics earn points for their efforts. In the debate events, a win in a round is worth six points while a loss is worth three. In the speech events, there are three point brackets; original speeches, worth six points, interpretation events, worth five points, and speaking events, worth four points. Six point events include Extemporaneous Speaking, Original Oratory, and Expository; first place in one of these rounds earns a competitor six points, second earns the competitor five, third earns four, etc. Five point events include Prose, Poetry, Humorous Interpretation, Dramatic Interpretation, and Dual Interpretation. The four point event category is reserved for events like Impromptu Speaking.

National Forensic League Points (NFL points) are employed in the scoring system used by the National Forensic League to rank competitors' lifetime progress, and to determine how many competitors a school may register in an NFL District Tournament.

In debate events, the winner (or both members of the winning team) each earn six points, and the loser earns three. In speaking events, points vary with the speaker's place in the round. Competitors in events that involve creating original material such as: Foreign Extemporaneous Speaking (FX), Domestic Extemporaneous Speaking (DX), Original Oratory (OO), Lincoln-Douglas Debate (LD), Public Forum Debate (PF) and Policy Debate (CX) each earn more points than competitors in events that involve interpreting previously published material such as Prose (PR), Poetry (PO), Humorous Interpretation (HI), Duet Acting (DA), and Dramatic Interpretation (DI). The least expected points are categorized in "Speaking" events. These include Impromptu (Imp), and any other optional speaking events. In years past, Student Congress (StuCo) speeches given each received a score of up to six points. New NFL rules now allow up to eight points per speech. Commonly more than one judge scores each speech in Student Congress, so in this case the scores of the judges are averaged and rounded up to calculate the speech score.

Rank:
 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th
Points Earned:
Original Speech
6
5
4
3
2
1
1
1
Points Earned:
Interpretation
5
4
3
2
1
1
1
1
Points Earned:
Speaking
4
3
2
1
1
1
1
1

Members can only earn up to 750 points in each of the three areas of competition: debate, speaking events (original oratory, extemporaneous speaking and the interpretative events), and Student Congress. Points earned at NFL District Tournaments and the NFL National Tournament are not subject to the 750-point cap. The point limit was raised in 2004 from 500 points.

Members can also earn "service points", which accrue for certain activities outside of speech competition. Delivering speeches before audiences of twenty-five or more adults, for instance, earns a fixed number of service points.

As a member accumulates points, they earn NFL degrees. Each degree corresponds to the jeweling pattern of an NFL pin which the degree-holder is authorized to wear, and to a seal which will be placed on the degree-holder's membership certificate. The following are the Membership Degrees:

Degree
Points
Jewels
Seal
Merit
25
None
White
Honor
75
Emerald
Bronze
Excellence
150
Sapphire
Silver
Distinction
250
Ruby
Gold
Special
Distinction
500
Double
Ruby
Rose
Superior
Distinction
750
Triple
Ruby
Blue
Outstanding
Distinction
1000
Quadruple
Ruby
Purple
Premier
Distinction
1500+
Quint
Ruby
Black

It should be noted that NFL pins are by no means ubiquitous; some competitors in some areas are more likely to wear them; other competitors in other areas may abstain from them, and even consider them to be highly pretentious. In some forms of speech competition, advertising one's standing with a pin may also place one at a minor tactical disadvantage.

[edit] Point Archive: Coach/Instructor

School Instructors also receive points, which are dependent upon their students' performances. The instructor receives 1/10 of a point for each point received by one of the instructor's students. The better the team, the better recognition of the instructor. Instructors follow the exact same degree as students; however, an instructor receives a diamond after accumulating point totals of 1,500, 3,000 and every 3,000 points thereafter. All instructor points are dependent upon the performance of the instructor's team, although the coach or coaches decide how to award accumulated coaching points among themselves.

State leagues

While the National Speech and Debate Tournament and the qualifying District Competitions are hosted by the NFL, most forensics tournaments during the school year operate under the auspices of other organizations. Chief among them are the state speech leagues, such as:

In other states, speech is classed with other high school interscholastic competition and is overseen by the same organization as football, basketball and gymnastics such as:

State leagues operate independently. Some leagues sponsor events not offered by the NFL. These events may still qualify for NFL points, however