The Brooks Academy disbanded after competing at the
2015 NJFL Middle School National Tournament.

Coach Stephan Brooks can be reached at:

sbrooks@BrooksDebate.com

REGISTER: Burnett Spring Invitational

Registration for the 2016 Burnett Spring Invitational is now live!

Click here to register!

REGISTER: SCU Philalethic

Registration is now open for the SCU Philalethic! Sign up early, tournament will fill up!

This is a large invitational tournament, open to competitors of all age, grades, and skill levels. It offers competition in virtually all competitive speech and debate formats that are popular in California and nationally, in both novice and varsity divisions.

Competition takes place over the course of 2 days. All preliminary rounds of speech will conclude on SAT, with semis/finals rounds on SUN for students that advance. Debate prelims begin on SAT, finish early on SUN, followed by elimination rounds through the night.

04/02-04/03 SCU PHILALETHIC

@ Santa Clara University
Registration Deadline: Monday 03/21

REGISTER: EV Novite

Registration is now open for the EV Novite!

This is a novice debate tournament (no speech!) open to first year high school competitors and middle school students. All students will get the chance to compete in three rounds. Please note that it takes place in San Jose, CA on a Friday right after school!

03/11 EVERGREEN NOVITE
@ Evergreen Valley High School (San Jose, CA)

Registration Deadline: Tuesday 03/01

REGISTER: Cesar Chavez Memorial Tournament

Registration is now open for the Cesar Chavez Memorial Tournament!

This is a middle school only tournament that offers students
the chance to compete in both speech and debate events.

02/27 CESAR CHAVEZ MEMORIAL TOURNAMENT
@ Cesar Chavez Middle School (Union City, CA)

Registration Deadline: Wednesday 02/17

RESULTS: National Middle School Tournament @ Overland Park, KS

The Brooks Academy took 27 students to compete at the 2014 National Middle School Tournament, which was held WED 06/18 – FRI 06/20, and was hosted by Overland Park, KS. Exactly 100 schools from around the country entered in the competition, with 750 students competing in over 1200 different entries. After three grueling days of competition, The Brooks Academy’s students had collectively competed in over 70 rounds of elimination competition, won the national title in three different events, and as a team was recognized with the Overall School of Excellence Award, given to the Top 3 best performing schools in both Speech and Debate events. This is the second year in a row our staff’s program has been fortunate enough to earn the Overall School of Excellence Award, and we are already looking forward to next year’s 2015 National Tournament in Dallas and the chance to once again defend our title.

A special thanks to all of our students, coaches, and parents who work extremely hard to support our team. Our program's ability to make speech and debate available to as many students as possible and all of the success we continue to enjoy is a direct result of all of the love and support we are so fortunate to receive year in and year out. Thanks everyone.

---

Highlights from the tournament included…

-- Our program set several new team records, including clearing 9 entries to the Final Round: Dec, DI, Duo, Extemp (4), Imp, and PF.

-- The Brooks Academy brought 5 Extempers, who collectively finished prelim rounds with scores of only 1 or 2. After Quarter-Finals, all 5 of our Extempers also cleared to Semi-Finals, and 4 made it to the Final Round: Ankush Swarnakar, Arian Raje, Devesh Kodnani, and Ishan Lakhani. Arian Raje would go on to win 1st Place, earning our team’s first back-to-back national title in an event. Last year, Anshul Shah also won Extemp Speaking, which was our team’s first national title.

-- The majority of our debaters showed off their versatility and also cleared in a speech or second debate event: Lavanya Singh (DI & LD), Devesh Kodnani (Extemp & PF), Ankush Swarnakar (Extemp & PF), Ishika Chawla (Congress & PF), Robert Chen (DI & PF), Roanak Baviskar (Extemp & PF), Praveen Nair (Congress & PF), and Aman Agarwal (Congress & Duo).

-- Speaking of our debate squad: all six of our Public Forum teams cleared to elimination rounds, and as a group, went 26-4 in preliminary rounds, losing only four rounds.

-- Suki Singh, our only student entered in four speech events, cleared to elimination rounds in all four events.

-- Arian Raje cleared to elims in all three of his events (DEC, EXTEMP, & IMP), made the Final Round in all three, and finished as the 1st Place National Champion in two events: Extemporaneous & Impromptu Speaking. He placed 3rd in Declamation. Arian Raje becomes our program’s first student to make the Final Round in three events, our first National Champion in two events, and our first 1st Place Champion at both the California State and National Tournament levels for his efforts in Extemp Speaking.

The following is a list of all of our students who qualified to the elimination rounds of competition and how they placed…

DECLAMATION:
Arian Raje (3rd Place)
Eva Prakash (Qtrs)
Julia Park (Qtr)

DRAMATIC INTERP:
Lavanya Singh (5th Place)
Robert Chen (Qtrs)
Rohan Kota (Qtrs)
Suki Singh (Qtrs)

DUO INTERP:
Aman Agarwal & Ayush Agarwal (2nd Place)
James Dang & Suki Singh (Semis)
Durga Badrinarayanan & Suki Singh (Qtrs)

EXTEMP SPEAKING:
Arian Raje (1st Place)
Devesh Kodnani (3rd Place)
Ankush Swarnakar (4th Place)
Ishan Lakhani (5th Place)
Roanak Baviskar (Semis)

HUMOROUS INTERP:
Ishan Lakhani (Semis)
Rohan Srinivasan (Semis)

IMPROMPTU SPEAKING:
Arian Raje (1st Place)
Ishan Lakhani (Qtrs)

ORIGINAL ORATORY:
Eva Prakash (Semis)

POETRY:
Rohan Srinivasan (Semis)

PROSE:
Rohan Kota (Semis)
Julia Park (Qtrs)
Suki Singh (Qtrs)

CONGRESSIONAL DEBATE:
Aman Agarwal (Semis)
Ishika Chawla (Semis)
Praveen Nair (Semis)

LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE:
Lavanya Singh (Qtrs)
Rishi Bala (Doubles)

PUBLIC FORUM DEBATE:
Devesh Kodnani & Ankush Swarnakar (1st Place)
Avi Patel & Abhishek Shah (Semis)
Ishika Chawla & Robert Chen (Qtrs)
Roanak Baviskar & Praveen Nair (Octos)
Surya Pugal & Sahith Tummala (Octos)
Rohit Ghoshal & Aarushi Sahejpal (Doubles)

RESULTS: 2014 Western JV & Novice Championship @ SFSU

After an extended winter break, The Brooks Academy officially returned to competition by attending the 2nd Annual Western JV & Novice Championship hosted by San Francisco State University. Despite the long winter layoff, our program sent two dozen students, and fielded entries in Lincoln-Douglas, Public Forum, and Student Congress. By the end of the final rounds on Sunday, our students had done extremely well across the board: we cleared 7 of the 14 Public Forum teams in elimination rounds, swept all 5 JV Public Forum speaker awards, finished 2nd Place runner-up in both Public Forum divisions, and won 1st Place in Student Congress. Congratulations everyone.

LINCOLN-DOUGLAS (Novice):

5th Place (Qtrs) - Lavanya Singh

PUBLIC FORUM (Novice):

2nd Place - Rohit Gohshal & Aarushi Sahejpal

3rd Place (Semis) - Roanak Baviskar & Akhil Bhamidipati

5th Place (Qtrs) - Rohan Srinivasan & Andre Wang

2nd Place Speaker - Rohan Srinivasan

PUBLIC FORUM (JV):

2nd Place - Ishika Chawla & Robert Chen

3rd Place (Semis) - Ani Gottiparthy & Anshul Shah
5th Place (Qtrs) - Kunal Agarwal & Sai Dwibhashyam
5th Place (Qtrs) - Devesh Kodnani & Sukhman Singh

1st Place Speaker - Ishika Chawla

2nd Place Speaker - Anshul Shah

3rd Place Speaker - Ani Gottiparthy

4th Place Speaker - Robert Chen

5th Place Speaker - Kunal Agarwal

STUDENT CONGRESS:

1st Place - Michelle Huang

3rd Place - Aman Agarwal