Owen L. Coon Memorial Debate Tournament
Biography
With few exceptions, Northwestern University has sponsored an inter-collegiate debate tournament every year since 1872. The tournament was renamed the Owen L. Coon Memorial Debate Tournament around 1957, after the Owen L. Coon Foundation began sponsoring it. Coon was an alumnus of Northwestern (B.A. 1915, L.L.B. 1919) and a member of the University's Board of Trustees from 1936 until his death in 1948. He gave several major gifts to the University, including those awarded by the Owen L. Coon Foundation, which was established primarily to fund the Clarion DeWitt Hardy Scholarships in Forensics.
The three-day invitational debate tournament was usually held at the beginning of February, with approximately one hundred teams competing. Many of the same teams competed every year. In 1973, the tournament hosted a Centennial Convocation, celebrating one hundred years of inter-collegiate debate, which began at Northwestern University in 1872.
The tournament usually consisted of eight preliminary rounds and a set of final elimination rounds. Every team debated the national topic, affirmative or negative. The Owen L. Coon Tournament was among the tournaments in which debaters earned points to qualify for the National Debate Tournament. Some of the winners of the tournament were University of Houston, Georgetown, the University of Kansas, Harvard, Dartmouth and the University of Redlands.