Quarry Lane Student Earns Coveted National Tournament Spot

Quarry Lane School junior Allen Abbott has earned a bid to the 2017 Tournament of Champions (TOC) speech and debate championship held annually at the University of Kentucky.

The TOC, now in its 46th year, is regarded as one of the most prestigious speech and debate tournaments on the “national circuit” while featuring some of the very best competitors from across the country. Students must earn “bids” based on their performances during the regular competitive season at select national and regional tournaments.

Allen earned his coveted spot based on his third place finish at the University of Pacific Invitational tournament this past weekend. He delivered a Dramatic Interpretation speech called, “Exonerated,” based on one man’s experience on death row before being cleared of a crime he did not commit.

This will be Allen’s second consecutive TOC competition bid. “It’s fitting that Allen heard the good news about the TOC on the same day he spent part of his morning delivering his speech to our group of middle school speakers, who can learn from his example,” says Quarry Lane Speech and Debate coach Mike Smith. “Everyone in our program can take pride in Allen’s TOC bid, especially since we owe so much of our overall achievements to how well we work together as a team.”

In addition to his TOC bid last year, Allen also qualified for the National Speech and Debate championships in Salt Lake City. He and nine other Quarry Lane team members also competed at the 2016 National Catholic Forensic League Championships in Sacramento.

Allen will join over 3,000 competitors at the TOC tournament in Lexington, Kentucky on April 29 through May 1, 2017. In the meantime, several members of the Quarry Lane team will look to earn additional spots at the competition. “With so many other talented speakers and debaters within our program,” says Mr. Smith, “we have high hopes that this is just the beginning of our school making an impact at the highest national level.”