The teachers were cool and smart. – Former Student

Noah Recker has been the director of forensics at La Vernia High School for the past seven years. He has coached UIL state competitors in LD debate, CX debate, student congress, extemporaneous speaking, prose and poetry. He has had 18 UIL state medalists, including four state champions (three in LD debate and one in persuasive speaking). He has coached numerous students to TFA State including the TFA state congressional champion in the House in 2012 and TFA state semi-finalists in public forum in 2013. He has served on the UIL Regional Advisory Committee, the NSDA Central Texas District Committee, the UIL LD debate State Advisory Committee, and the UIL Student Congress Advisory Committee. Noah is also the author of the 2014-2015 national CX debate topic on oceans.

Alex Pritchard is Director of Academic Affairs at the Austin Peace Academy in Austin, Texas. Alex’s record speaks for itself. He is among the two or three most successful high school coaches in the past fifteen years. His teams have won two NFL National Championships and one national runner up. His teams have placed first at every major invitational in the United States, including the Heart of Texas Invitational at the St. Mark’s School of Texas, the National Invitational at Harvard University, the Barkley Forum for High Schools at Emory University, and the Southern Bell Forum at Montgomery Bell Academy. Alex coached the winners of the 2000 edition of the prestigious Tournament of Champions (TOC) at the University of Kentucky, as well as the 2000 Glenbrooks Debate Tournament. He also has three runner-up finishes at the TOC. His teams have won the prestigious Texas Forensic Association State tournament six times. Alex has worked at the Zarefsky scholars for juniors and sophomores, the Coon Hardy institute, the NHSI institute, and the Iowa institute just to name a few. Alex has been inducted into the Tournament of Champions Hall of Fame and holds the honor of being a Key Coach at the Barkley Forum. Alex returns to The Championship Debate Group for his eighth summer.

Jana Riggins joined the University Interscholastic League in 1997 serving as State Director of Speech & Debate and assisting with the entire academic program. Prior to becoming a staff member, she taught speech and coached forensics in Texas public schools for twenty-one years, directing award-winning programs. She holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Baylor University, where the Baylor faculty selected her Outstanding Woman in Speech In 1991, she was named one of the original recipients of the UIL-Denius Sponsor Excellence Award and commendation by The University of Texas in Austin College of Education with the Texas Excellence Award for Outstanding High School Teachers for bringing honor to the teaching profession and inspired dedication to students. Selected as Texas Speech Teacher of the Year, she is one of only forty-two educators in the state of Texas to be named a “Master Teacher” by the Commissioner and State Board of Education. Mrs. Riggins has served as President of the Texas Speech Communication Association, National Communication Association States Advisory Council, Chair of the TSCA High School Curriculum Committee along with other numerous leadership roles, and was selected to the Standards Development Committee for the State Board for Educator Certification. Riggins is currently serving on the National Speech Advisory Committee and has received one of the highest awards bestowed by the National Federation of State High Schools Association, the Citation Award.

Jason Jordan is currently a debate coach and doctoral student at the University of Utah. As the director of debate at Ranger College, he coached teams to NPTE first round bids and qualified multiple debaters for the college LD national tournament. He holds a master’s degree in communication studies. As a high school coach, he has previously coached UIL and TFA medalists, NDCA qualifiers, and NFL nationals elimination round participants in various debate events at Decatur and Richardson. As a high school competitor, Jason was a three-event, four-year UIL state qualifier at Bruceville-Eddy high school. In addition, Jason has presented scholarship internationally in the fields of communication and legal studies.Jason has coached multiple debate teams to late elimination rounds and individual speaker awards at the NPTE and NPDA championship tournaments. Jason has judged the national championship round at the NPTE, and currently serves as the NPDA district 5 faculty representative.

Aimee Kasprzyk has a long and successful history in competitive speech and theatre through the UIL system and other circuits in North, East, and Central Texas. At Hillsboro High School, she directed a UIL state finalist play in 2016, receiving multiple individual medals, including the 4A Best Actor, and coached the UIL 4A state silver medalist in poetry interpretation and the 5th place finalist in prose interpretation in 2017. Prior to those results, Aimee has coached multiple UIL state champions and numerous state qualifiers, finalists, and medalists in prose and poetry interpretation at Corsicana HS and Rice HS as well as directing five additional UIL state-qualifying OAPs with multiple individual acting medalists at state while teaching and directing at Rice HS. In 2004 and 2008, she directed the 2nd place plays at the UIL OAP State Meet. Aimee is returning to the faculty of The Championship Group after spending recent summers earning her MA in Educational Theatre from The University of Houston. Her undergraduate degree in secondary education is from Baylor University.She loves teaching, coaching, and directing individual events and plays and is excited to return to helping eager students who want to dig into great literature during summer vacation!

Sandy Peek is a speech alumnus of Dulles High School in Sugarland, Texas, and a past debater for Texas Tech. After graduation and marriage, Sandy and her husband decided they would prefer to live in a rural area and moved. Once their youngest child was old enough, Sandy started her school’s first speech program and she has been coaching speech and debate in rural East Texas ever since. During those years, Sandy  built the program into one of the largest small school programs in Texas.  She has coached  UIL champions in policy, LD, congress and extemp in addition to 43 other state speech medalists. Sandy particularly enjoys working with students from communities that traditionally do not have access to speech and debate.

Dustin Hurley is currently the director of forensics at Medina Valley High School in Castroville Texas. He has coached state qualifiers in CX debate, and has consulted for NSDA national qualifiers, NITOC qualifiers, and TFA state qualifiers. As a high school competitor at La Vernia High School Dustin was a four time UIL state medalist, twice in persuasive speaking, twice in Lincoln Douglas debate, and Lincoln Douglas debate state champion, three time TFA state qualifier, TFA state semi-finalist in Public Forum debate, and two time NSDA national tournament qualifier. He currently serves on the TFA rules committee to introduce world schools debate, and has taught Lincoln Douglas clinics for the UIL and several debate camps.