Intercollegiate Forensics

I began my forensics career in 1979 at Elkton High School. I have been actively involved ever since. I have coached at big public institutions, small private liberal arts colleges, and community colleges.  Each of those institutions brought a unique flavor to the activity and each brought a unique student body, but there was one commonality among the students with whom I worked; they had a strong desire to improve themselves as communicators.  Competition brought out the best in their performances.  

	I have had the opportunity to work with some very successful programs.  From 1997-2000 I coached at Ohio University where we went from 41st at the AFA-NIET to 12th at the AFA-NIET and 6th at the NFA tournament.  From 2000-2003 I coached at Truman State University where we went from "so far down in sweepstakes they didn't bother to count" to 5th place at the National Forensics Association Tournament.  From 2003-2007 I coached at Concordia College in Moorhead MN where we went from 25th at the AFA-NIET to 14th.  You can click on the image at the left to see photos of some of my former teams.
	I have also had the opportunity to work with several forensics institutes and workshops.  I would say the most rewarding experience of my forensics professional career has been developing and hosting the Concordia Speech Institute (CSI).  The one week camp started with 22 students and blossomed to 82 students within three years (that was actually two students over the maximum limit we had set).   I have also encouraged others to develop similar summer programs.
	I have found that at the begining of each year I find myself covering the same basic information with each incoming student as they get ready to compete in their first collegiate tournament.  So I started to put together some standard materials to help them through the process and maximize the time we have together in coaching sessions.  This has developed into a fairly extensive website of coaching advice and model speech and exemplars for oral interpretation events.  Eventually i would like to be able to add video clips to the website as well.  I offer these pages freely to anyone who might be helped by them.  I know that several other collegiate programs use them regularly and I am honored that they do so.