Following its mission of increasing student involvement in debate by providing quality debate opportunities to students across Orange County and beyond, the Orange County Debate League offers three high school tournaments each year.  There are currently no league dues or registration fees to join the high school tournaments.  They are open to any interested individual and team debaters.

Information regarding our high school tournaments can be found below.  Should you have questions regarding the tournaments, or if you wish to participate as an individual (independent of a school), please contact the high school tournament coordinator, Mark Hobbs, with questions: mhobbs@ocdl.org.

Feel free to share tournament information with others.

Dates for the 2022-2023 SEASON:

OCDL Workshop – September 17

Tournament Dates for high schools:

Fall Tournament – October 29
Winter Tournament – January 28
Spring Tournament – April 29

spring resolutions:

  • Steps should be taken to substantially alter the debt ceiling
  • The death penalty does more HARM than GOOD
  • Impromptu (TBA on tournament day)
  • Impromptu (TBA on tournament day)

Guidelines and OCDL High School Rules of Debating and Judging:

Each tournament will be 4 rounds and follow a high school parliamentary format. 

Download the OCDL high school debate rules here.Download

Judging Requirement:

The OCDL asks all teams to provide one judge per two teams attending the tournament, with a minimum requirement of 1 judge.  The more experienced judges are preferred, but at the moment, there is no certification requirement for judges.  Lay judges will be allowed.  Formal training and certification will be introduced as the number of participating schools grows.

Registration (for coaches):

Skip to step 3 if you already have a Tabroom account and a school profile. If you have participated in an OCDL tournament before, skip to step 4.

1. Create a Tabroom.com account.
2. Create a school profile.
3. Join the OCDL circuit (click on your email at the top, select your school from the ‘Institutions’ list, click the Circuits tab, and select Orange County Debate League).
4.Select your school from the ‘Institutions’ list.
5. You should see the following link in the list of tournaments. Select the ‘Register’ button.

6. Fill in adult information and save.

If you do not need to add new students to your roster, skip to step 11.

7. Select your email address at the top. Then select your school from ‘Institutions’.
8. Select the ‘Competitors’ tab.
9. Select “Add a new student” in the top right.
10. Enter student information and repeat until all students are entered.
11. Select your email address at the top. Then select ‘Entry’ for the desired tournament.

12. Select the ‘Entries’ tab. Then click the blue ‘Add entry in’ button.
13. Select your competitors (two or three person teams) and save.
14. Select the ‘Judges’ tab. Then add existing judges from the dropdown or add new ones to the roster.

Should you encounter an problems with registration, please contact the high school tournament administrator, Matthew Ong at mong@ocdl.org.