For the past four years of my life, I’ve spent every Wednesday at speech and debate practice. I love forensics. It has given me a platform to advocate for issues I care about like no other, and it’s helped me in becoming an articulate speaker. Without those weekly practices, the help of my coach, and the advice I received from my fellow competitors, I would not have made it as far as I have. Yet there’s one often overlooked part of the speech and debate community that was equally, if not more, important to helping me succeed: independent entries.

From freshman to junior year, my team consisted of only me, besides a few stragglers. Our program was extremely new, and there were no veteran competitors who could mentor me. I had no virtually coaching — the only way I could learn was through experience, which was not easy, to say the least. In my first year, I only competed at three tournaments, primarily in Lincoln-Douglas debate. Progress was slow; for example, at my first tournament in LD, I didn’t even know what the word “framework” meant. That year, I only won four rounds in debate.

I quickly realized that, if I wanted to succeed, I had to compete at more tournaments. More tournaments meant more feedback, which was the only practical form of advice I could get my hands on. After all, I had no one I could do mock-debates with at practice, and my coach had never competed in LD.

Between my freshman and sophomore year, I competed in one additional tournament and three more events, including extemp, congress, and info. But that still wasn’t enough. I was hardly getting any feedback, and, considering the only way I learned how to compete was by competing, four tournaments wasn’t doing a lot for me.

Around the start of my junior year, I learned about competing as an independent entry. Instead of attending tournaments with my team, I could make my own team on Tabroom, and register myself for tournaments. Coming from a marginally nonexistent speech and debate team that barely had enough money to compete in the first place, having the ability to manage my own fees, judging, and registration, was a dream. In total, I competed in over twenty tournaments as an independent entry that season, most of which were online, with the exclusion of three tournaments in the surrounding area.

Independent entry, or indie entry, was a game changer. No longer was I confined to my state’s circuit or the tournaments my team could attend. Instead, I could compete relatively anywhere. There was just one problem: indie entry was not allowed at a large portion of tournaments I wanted to attend, which was not a lesson learned easy. 

A while ago, sometime in last May, I remember I had flagged a series of tournaments in another state as tournaments I wanted to attend. I tentatively registered myself, only to find my entry deleted the next day. Huh, that’s weird, I thought to myself. Maybe I hadn’t finished entering myself on Tabroom. Whatever, that’s an easy fix, I told myself, reentering myself in the same event I had already registered for. After the third time this happened, I was started to go crazy. I knew I wasn’t not registering myself. So, I emailed the tournament director, only to be told in less than one sentence that I couldn’t compete because I was an independent entry.

For me, this news was devastating. Obviously, it was only one tournament that I missed out on, but this problem isn’t exclusive to one tournament. Increasingly, indie entry is being disallowed at tournaments across nearly all circuits. In fact, the NSDA’s Springboard Scrimmages, which used to allow indie entry, now specifically require that competitors register with their schools. As stated under the requirements page of the scrimmages, “No Independents allowed. Students must compete under the name of the school at which they are enrolled with permission by their school.”

While I’m not sure what prompted this switch, I could imagine a host of reasons as to why it occurred, whether that be a lack of accountability from independent competitors or even liability issues. Whatever it may be, this presents an obstacle to many disadvantaged competitors, like myself. Instead of managing my entries by myself, I now have to go through my coach, placing an extra burden on her to do work I could have done on my own.

This is not to criticize this change, as it likely happened for good reason. Yet it begs the question that, with the increasing amount of bans on independent entries at tournaments, what can these competitors do?

As one of those competitors, I wasn’t sure how to answer that question. It’s already daunting competing as an indie entry. You don’t have the support you would have had from a team or coach, and you’re responsible for all of your fees, judging, and transportation. You’re basically your own team manager.

Obviously, the simple, straightforward solution would be to just ask your coach to register you for those tournaments. But sometimes, for whatever reason, that isn’t an option. Maybe it’s an in-person tournament your coach can’t attend, or maybe your coach doesn’t have the time to fill out the registration. At that point, what can you do?

While it’s easy for me to sit here and say this, it’s time we advocate for independent entries as a community. Though there are pros and cons of indie entries, the larger, universal benefit to disadvantaged competitors cannot be ignored. Whether we like it or not, for some competitors, the ability to compete independently is the only way those competitors can gain experience and compete in the first place. It’s not realistic to place a one-size fits all ban on the practice while ignoring the ramifications this will have on disadvantaged competitors who would otherwise be unable to compete. 

For competitors in such a situation, there has to be some understanding and leniency, and the forensics community as a whole ought to advocate for these competitors to have a space within speech and debate. Although the path for these competitors to be able to compete is uncertain, anything, to any degree, is better than nothing.