COVER STORY
Pam Cady Wycoff is an eight-diamond coach from Apple Valley High School in Minnesota. Dr. Tommie Lindsey, Jr., is a seven-diamond coach from James Logan High School in California.
Pam and Tommie will retire from the NSDA Board of Directors this summer after serving since 2004. We asked them to reflect on their speech and debate journey, their role in leadership, and their vision for the future.
LEADERS & LEGENDS Honoring the speech and debate legacies of Pam Cady Wycoff and Dr. Tommie Lindsey, Jr.
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n 2020, the National Speech & Debate Tournament was held entirely online in the midst of the COVID-19 virus global pandemic. Always a logistical challenge, in 2020 the tournament also became an exercise in imagination, optimism, and a commitment that the show must go on. How to qualify students where districts weren’t able to be held? How to ensure qualifiers had the technology to compete? How to generate the online
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by Amy Seidelman groundwork necessary to execute this possibility for decades, thanks in no small part to the leadership of President Pam Cady Wycoff and Vice President Dr. Tommie Lindsey, Jr.
“rooms” necessary to host the expansive competition? The decision to host the tournament online, and the community’s ability to rise to the challenge, resulted in
the largest national speech and debate tournament ever held with more than 6,000 participants. The NSDA had been unknowingly laying the
Pam and Tommie, who were elected together in 2004, both cite the online tournament as one of the most impactful moments of their tenures.