Every tournament seemed to end the same way. The same schools advanced. The same competitors appeared at tournaments. The same names were posted on pairings outside classrooms at seven in the morning. In forensics, especially within local circuits, students rarely compete against strangers. They compete against the same people over and over again, sometimes for years.

At first, rivalry feels motivating. Losing to the same competitor repeatedly can push students to improve their cases, rewrite speeches, practice harder, and care more deeply about the activity. Rivalries create narratives within the circuit. Competitors begin recognizing each other not just as random opponents, but as benchmarks of progress and excellence.

However, rivalry in forensics exists within a strange contradiction. The same competition that motivates growth can also produce hostility, bias, exclusion, and toxicity. When competitors become emotionally attached to rankings, prestige, and reputation, the line between argument and personal conflict often begins to blur. Rivalry stops being educational and instead becomes interpersonal.

A survey conducted across forensics competitors found that 84% of respondents compete against the same competitors from other schools “often” or “very often.” More importantly, 91.3% believed rivalry sometimes becomes personal rather than argumentative; this is likely the leading reason, behind 78.3% of respondents having reported witnessing toxic behavior between competitors from different schools. These responses reveal an uncomfortable reality: rivalry is not merely a side effect of forensics culture–it has become embedded into the structure of the activity itself.

Yet despite these issues, nearly 99% of respondents still believed rivalry can remain both competitive and respectful.

That contradiction is what defines modern speech and debate. Of course, rivalry itself is not the problem. The problem is what happens when rivalry exists without ethical norms, professionalism, and structural safeguards. Through intentional advocacy, stronger cultural expectations, and greater emphasis on respect over reputation, forensics can preserve the intensity of competition while protecting the educational and communal values that make the activity meaningful in the first place. Many of the nation’s most accomplished competitors describe rivalry as one of the most formative parts of their growth within the activity. Akash Vukoti, who placed third at the National Speech & Debate Tournament in Extemporaneous Commentary, reflected:

“If it weren’t for the rivalries I’ve had over my time doing speech and debate, I don’t think I would have been able to better myself as much as I have, especially in extemp. As long as there’s no malice or ill will involved, rivalries are a solid way to provide some extra motivation that you might need to keep going.”

Rivalries Motivate Competition & Growth

Unlike many extracurricular activities, forensics creates unusually repetitive competition structures. Students travel to the same invitationals, attend the same district tournaments, and repeatedly encounter the same opponents throughout a season. Over time, competitors stop viewing one another as isolated rounds and instead develop long-term perceptions of each other’s abilities, schools, reputations, and personalities.

This repetition naturally creates rivalry. In the survey, over half of respondents reported developing some form of rivalry or envy toward competitors from another school. Such rivalries are not inherently negative. In fact, many competitors describe them as one of the most motivating aspects of the activity.

One respondent explained:

“Rival competitors push me to work harder, so I would say it’s definitely helped me positively.”

Another wrote:

“I wanted to prove that I was truly the best of the novices in my category… but truthfully, that person has now become one of my greatest friends.”

These responses demonstrate that rivalry often functions as a mechanism for growth. Competitors sharpen one another through repeated clashes. A strong opponent forces better preparation, deeper research, stronger speaking ability, and greater adaptability.

At its best, rivalry embodies the educational purpose of forensics itself. Debate and speech are built upon clash. Students improve precisely because someone challenges them.

However, the structure of forensics also creates conditions where rivalry can evolve into something far less constructive.

Rowan Seipp, a TFA champion and UIL state quintuple champion and Montgomery Bell Academy (MBA), and TOC runner up similarly argued that rivalry is inseparable from improvement within the activity:

“I think rivalries are important for growth, healthy competition drives you to win and be better, this activity is a competitive one after all as long as they stay healthy.”

This perspective reflects the central paradox of forensics culture. Competition is not a flaw within the activity; it is one of the mechanisms through which students improve. Strong competitors force one another to adapt, refine arguments, strengthen delivery, and continually raise their standards.

When Rivalry Stops Being About Arguments

The core issue is not competition itself, but personalization. When students stop separating the ballot from the person, rivalry becomes hostile rather than educational.

Survey data strongly supports this concern. While only 20.2% of respondents described most rivalries as negative overall, 91.3% still believed rivalry sometimes becomes personal instead of remaining argument-focused. This suggests that even relatively healthy circuits still struggle with maintaining professionalism under competitive pressure.

Competitors reported witnessing numerous forms of toxic behavior, including:

• Unsportsmanlike conduct after rounds

• Personal attacks during debates

• Social media callouts

• Passive aggression

• Intentional distractions during speeches

• Exclusionary behavior toward smaller programs

The most commonly reported issue was unsportsmanlike conduct after rounds, selected by 45 respondents. Closely following this was perceived judge bias influenced by school reputation, selected by 41 respondents.

That second finding is particularly important because it reveals that rivalry in forensics is not purely interpersonal; it is also structural.

Many competitors believe schools possess “reputation advantages.” In the survey, 88.4% either “agreed” or “strongly agreed” that some schools benefit from reputational prestige within rounds. Additionally, nearly 70% believed smaller or less-resourced schools are disadvantaged within competitive rivalries.

In practice, this creates a hierarchy that extends beyond individual skill. Schools become brands. Certain programs carry reputations that precede their competitors into rounds. Students from smaller schools may feel pressured to outperform opponents significantly just to receive equal consideration.

One respondent described this dynamic directly:

“I feel like if you’re in the same area you’re bound to get the same people and judges, so at some point they know what school you’re from despite never saying it explicitly in round.”

Another stated:

“Ensure that people who solely win off aura and reputation alone aren’t evaluated as much, even as I benefit from it.”

This phenomenon fundamentally changes rivalry. Students are no longer simply competing against arguments or performances; they are competing against institutional prestige, circuit narratives, and preconceived expectations.

Over time, that pressure can become deeply personal.

Even healthy rivalry can carry emotional consequences. Jack Wlazlowski, a UIL State Congress Champion and Florida Blue Key champion, described rivalry as simultaneously motivating and psychologically difficult:

“My close teammate and friend Sohan has improved significantly and encouraged me to get better alongside him with our friendly competition. I think sometimes though I compare myself and feel negative about my self image when I see other successful debaters beside me.”

His reflection highlights an often overlooked aspect of forensics culture: competitors are constantly surrounded by exceptionally talented peers. While that environment can inspire growth, it can also intensify insecurity, comparison, and burnout when students begin tying their personal value to competitive success.

The Human Cost of Toxic Rivalry

Forensics is often described as a “community,” yet communities can become exclusionary when competition outweighs empathy.

The emotional consequences of toxic rivalry appear throughout the survey responses. Some competitors described feeling intimidated by spectators during rounds. Others discussed hostility between schools spilling into personal interactions outside competition spaces. Several responses emphasized how social pressure within the circuit can transform opponents into enemies.

One competitor summarized the issue simply:

“Your opponent is not your enemy.”

That distinction matters because forensics is not merely about winning ballots. It is an educational activity centered on advocacy, communication, and intellectual growth. When competitors begin treating one another as personal threats rather than academic opponents, the activity’s purpose begins to erode.

More importantly, toxicity affects retention. Over 27% of respondents reported that rivalry had discouraged either themselves or someone they knew from continuing in forensics.

This matters because the activity depends on participation to survive. Toxic environments disproportionately harm:

• Novices

• Smaller schools

• Younger competitors

• Students already lacking institutional support

A large, well-funded program may survive losing a few frustrated students. Smaller schools often cannot.

One respondent reflected on this problem through comparison to a smaller middle school league:

“Everyone understood that making the community toxic would cause people to quit… the policy community is big enough to absorb some of those participant losses, which is taking away the natural social repercussions for being a jerk.”

That observation highlights a broader cultural issue. As circuits become larger and more competitive, students may feel less accountable for how they treat others. Toxicity becomes normalized because the community feels less personal.

Eventually, hostility stops feeling abnormal and starts feeling strategic.

Prestige Creates Hierarchies

The aforementioned hostility can become even more dangerous when everyone's eyes are stuck on the prize, especially when it comes to bid and point systems across the community. People start forgetting about the core values of not only the sense of sportsmanship and competition, but also the values of communication that debate pushes for. 

Rivalries get even more scary on the outside when it’s a battle to receive the last TOC bid you need to make it to the end, and whoever gets that point first is deemed better than the other. This is how the almost primitive sense of competition within Forensics participants leads to a natural hierarchy being established within a circuit. 

Slowly, you're titled as either a force to be reckoned with, one whose name strikes fear when it appears on your pairings, or a pushover who will easily give you the win. This polarizing classification of competitors leads to sentiment that not only carries into rivalries, but into team dynamics as well. This power creep can cause demotivation for those at the bottom, whilst causing significant strain on the ones at the top. This is one of the things that causes overcompetition and rivalries to turn into a struggle.

Why Rivalry Still Matters

Despite these concerns, eliminating rivalry entirely would neither be possible nor desirable.

Competition is central to forensics. Rivalry creates motivation. It raises standards. It encourages innovation and preparation. Many competitors genuinely enjoy the intensity of competitive rounds and the excitement of facing skilled opponents repeatedly.

More than half of survey respondents described their experiences with rivalry as positive overall, while 98.6% believed rivalry can remain both respectful and competitive simultaneously.

Some of the most meaningful responses in the survey reflected this balance.

One student wrote:

“Competing against your friends is always fun, but the ballot doesn’t determine your friendship.”

Another shared:

“The second it was over, both people immediately hugged each other and started crying.”

These examples demonstrate what healthy rivalry looks like. The conflict stays within the round itself. Competitors fight intensely over arguments, performances, and rankings, but preserve mutual respect outside competition.

In many ways, the best rivalries in forensics resemble athletic rivalries. Opponents may desperately want to win, but they also recognize that their rivals are responsible for pushing them toward excellence.

Without strong opponents, improvement becomes impossible.

The problem arises only when competitors begin valuing victory more than the community sustaining the activity itself.

Tanmay Rai, a Tournament of Champions finalist and Florida Blue Key top finisher, summarized this balance particularly well:

“It’s good to compete and its good to strive for the top - but when the trophies gather dust and our time on the circuit ends, the only thing truly left are the people.”

Rai continued by explaining that rivalry helped push him toward improvement “only when kept in context and never making me a worse person in the process.”

That distinction may ultimately define the difference between healthy and toxic rivalry. The strongest competitive environments are not those without conflict, but those where ambition never fully overrides empathy.

Cultural and Structural Reform

Because rivalry is inevitable, the solution is not removing competition but reshaping the culture surrounding it.

The survey revealed overwhelming support for reforms emphasizing professionalism, fairness, and respect. The most popular proposed solutions included:

• Greater emphasis on argument quality over reputation

• Increased support for smaller programs

• Stronger professionalism standards

• Better judge enforcement of conduct rules

Several competitors emphasized the importance of interpersonal interaction outside rounds.

One respondent stated:

“If your only experience with people is in round, you’re gonna hate them, but if you actually talk to them they’re often really nice.”

That insight may appear simple, but it addresses a fundamental issue. Rivalries worsen when competitors only encounter each other in adversarial contexts. Community-building outside rounds reduces dehumanization inside them.

Cultural reform must therefore begin with coaches, upperclassmen, and judges. Multiple respondents noted that younger competitors often inherit rivalries from older students or coaches.

One competitor explained:

“There is a culture within schools of upperclassmen putting their own rivalries with other schools upon lowerclassmen.”

This means toxicity is often learned behavior rather than inevitable behavior.

Judges also play an important role. Over 81% of respondents believed judges should penalize personal attacks or toxic behavior during rounds. If professionalism materially affects speaker points and rankings, competitors will adapt their behavior accordingly.

Structural reform matters as well. Many respondents suggested:

• Blind judging where possible,

• Reducing visible school identifiers,

• Stronger conduct enforcement,

• Greater financial support for smaller schools.

These reforms would not eliminate rivalry, but they could reduce the extent to which prestige and inequity shape competitive outcomes.

Most importantly, they would help preserve trust in the activity itself.

Finally, it is vital to understand that the culture around rivalries is driven significantly by personal decisions; rivalries can be harmful when those engaging in rivalries escalate them to interpersonal conflicts. Thus, one of the most important aspects of such cultural reform must be understanding that competitors are a community, not just individual schools clawing up a mountain for a trophy. Competitors must understand this is an activity built to raise well-informed, vigilant students, who are the future of our world, not just a trophy collecting competition. The biggest change we can have is how we choose to treat other people and foster healthy or unhealthy relationships with them, as these issues are not limited only to forensics but in most aspects of our life. 

How Social Media Further Shifts the Balance

Now, in a time where we can connect to each other so fast, especially in the debate setting, a new kind of social wellbeing has sprung up to help foster healthy competition and rivalries in Speech and Debate. For now, social media acts as a mostly positive area for people to connect and develop healthy competition. As soon as you watch your upperclassmen teammates go head to head against their rivals at a tournament, they go home and post each other’s story on instagram. Obviously, it’s a small gesture, but it speaks volumes for how social media is great at allowing for positive connection amongst debate rivalries.

Pepper Sychitkokhong, a renowned Interper who has competed in the out rounds across the country, and a finalist at NIETOC, TFA, Emory, UT and Harvard semifinalist, spoke this into his own words as well, stating “Social media is super helpful towards humanising competitors. At least for speech, 'celebrity culture' is pervasive, and it's unfortunately common to mean-mug, stone-face, or otherwise intimidate others during tournaments. However, social media provides the opportunity to see competitors outside of rounds/tournaments — showing fun outings with the team at travel tourneys, participation in non-speech hobbies -- and demystifies the 'celeb' aspects of, at the end of the day, other fellow kids. For this, I'm personally proud of my speech team's Instagram page; flaunting success and trophies can be fun, but, as a super small team, showcasing our team having fun and being human has proved more important than anything.” Pepper’s line exemplifies how an experienced outlook notices how important social media is in forensics space.

Our survey shows similar signs as well, as one respondent to the survey put it “if your only experience with people is in round, you’re gonna hate them, but if you actually talk to them they’re often really nice”. While this is true, it’s important to note how 1 in 5 respondents have noted that social media has been used as a platform to spread toxicity. In the future, it would be hopeful to see that this new space can grow and live on as new reforms to how competition and social interaction is treated in Speech and Debate changes.

Conclusion

Eventually, after enough tournaments, the same names stop feeling like obstacles and start feeling familiar. The competitors who once seemed intimidating become benchmarks for growth. The students standing across the room are no longer just rivals; they are part of the same strange, exhausting, deeply passionate community.

Forensics will always involve rivalry. It is impossible to separate competition from an activity built upon rankings, elimination rounds, and public performance. Nor should anyone want to. Rivalry pushes competitors toward excellence in ways comfort never could.

But there is a difference between opponents and enemies.

The future of forensics depends on whether competitors, coaches, and judges are willing to preserve that distinction. Without ethical norms and structural fairness, rivalry can become toxic enough to drive students away from the activity entirely. Yet with stronger professionalism, greater respect, and intentional cultural reform, rivalry can instead become what it was always meant to be: a force that sharpens competitors without destroying the community around them.

Trophies will gather dust. Rankings will disappear. Pairings will stop being posted. Forensics doesn’t stand for those things. What remains are the relationships, lessons, community built throughout the activity itself, and the skills that walk with you into your future.