2026 Coach of the Year Application

Teachers who coach debate are essential to help Urban Debate Leagues fulfill their mission: helping students become more academically successful and civically engaged through the rigor of debate. This award honors that work.

We are asking that each league nominate one coach who you believe deserves national recognition.

Qualifications & Requirements:

High school teacher and coach
Full-time teacher at the school for which they coach
Coached in the league for at least one year
Must coach at a school with a free and reduced lunch rate of 75% or higher (to confirm this number contact lukehill@urbandebate.org)

Guidelines can be found on the NAUDL website.

Application Deadline is January 16, 2026

Coach of the Year will be announced between January 28 – February 5, 2026. Theis person will be honored at NAUDL's Annual Dinner on Thursday, March 5 in Chicago, IL. Travel will be covered to the event.

Please contact Taylor Beck (taylorbeck@urbandebate.org) with any questions.

Nominator Information

First Name

Last Name

Nominee Information

Nominee First Name

Nominee Last Name

Nominee Email

Is the nominee a full-time high school teacher?

YesNo

Nominee School Name

Urban Debate League

Year nominee began coaching in league

We're excited to learn more about your nominee! As you fill out this form, please consider the following:

We will be evaluating the nominations relative to all of the nominations from the network. While we do not want this nomination process to be overly burdensome, more information has traditionally been helpful when evaluating candidates.

If Form Assembly gives you an "error" message when you are adding supplemental information, please send larger files to Taylor Beck (taylorbeck@urbandebate.org)

Short Answer

Describe how this coach provides all members of their team with support, instruction and feedback while teaching the skills necessary to be successful in debate:

Describe how this coach contributes to the success of your league in meeting its mission:

Describe how this coach creates a supportive and welcoming culture on their team:

Supplemental Information

Are there any social media handles (i.e. @username) or organizational website (www.website.com) links that need to be included in the recognition of your finalist?

We look forward to celebrating our nominees on social media. Please include a couple photos of your nominee, including at least one headshot.

Photo 2

Photo 3

Words of Affirmation
NAUDL wants to hear the awesome things that make your finalist great in your words! This video will be used to announce the 2026 Coach of the Year recipient and to showcase 2026 NAUDL Coach of the Year finalists.

Instructions
1. Open Zoom & Start A Meeting: Just start a meeting with only you present and record some nice words about your finalist
2. Save It & Upload: Save your video to your desktop and upload the video to this application [videos no longer than 2 minutes in length per video submission]

Video 2 [Optional]

Contact Information