Coaches Are Required to Attend CDL Tournaments

We want to remind CDL coaches that it is a job requirement that you attend the six regular Chicago Debate League tournaments, both days.

The CDL debate coach job description template lays out the expectation that every coach will attend at least five of the six regular tournaments both days, recognizing that unresolvable scheduling conflicts might prevent attendance at one tournament during the season. The 2013/14 CDL Season Calendar has been fixed and published since June — all of the dates in it, we hope, are in coaches’ calendars, but certainly the tournament dates should be.

Students need to be supervised by two adults on site at CDL tournaments. The CDL needs coaches to judge in order to serve the many CPS students who want to debate competitively in the CDL. And most importantly students want and need their coaches to be coaching and supporting them at debate tournaments.

External coaches have the same obligation: they must attend CDL tournaments both days. The CDL’s external coach job agreement template identifies this obligation. Schools that have an external coach should have a signed job agreement with the external coach, ensuring that the external coach fully knows and accepts these responsibilities and that the school understands its compensation obligation to the external coach.

Most schools’ coaches have been attending all tournament days, and doing an outstanding job. But some schools have had coaches “dividing up” tournament days or not fully accepting their obligation to be present at tournaments, even if their schools have been otherwise performing well. Thus this clarification.