About Our Coaches:

- Bill Thompson: 
     Bill has coached and instructed speech and debate for more than 30 years with a variety of University, high school, & middle school programs around the country. In the last decade, he has coached 7 high school national finalists and 11 middle school national finalists. He has coached 5 high school national champions and 3 middle school national champions in his career.     
     Bill has an extensive history of building a curriculum to teach speech and debate in both intensive speech and debate camps and classroom settings. Central to his curriculum is a focus on helping learners find their voices and helping them develop skills that allow them to hear and appreciate others' voices.  His classes are designed to meet learners where they are and develop their research, refutation, speech writing, speaking, and overall rhetorical skills.


- Ethan Schaffer
 Ethan Schaffer has over 11 years of experience coaching and competing in speech and debate. As a competitor, he won competitions at Yale University, Harvard, George Mason University, and the Tournament of Champions. He was ranked the number one competitor in the nation at the end of his debate career and has now devoted his time to helping students learn the art of public speaking and debate. Ethan can work with all age groups and has coached nearly 30 students to become state and national champions and a handful of those students are now attending Ivy League schools with scholarships for speech and debate.

- Tia Speece
Tia Speece has been coaching debate for over 6 years. In high school, she was a state champion and national qualifier in Lincoln Douglas Debate and competed nationally and internationally in World Schools Debate. In college, she competed in British Parliamentary debate, winning several international competitions. She has coached students to become national semi-finalists at NSDA in LD, winners in state championships, and coached the national debate team of the Czech Republic in World Schools, which won many international championships.  Tia loves working with beginners to debate as well as those shooting for major awards!