MOST DEADLINES ARE FEBRUARY 15

All materials should be emailed or mailed to the WFCA Past-President

The Past-President for 2025-26 is:

Scott Peterson
email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

mail - do not use WFCA PO Box listed on website. Send to:

Scott Peterson
1224 Dartmouth Rd
Madison WI 53705

For all submissions, an email confirmation will be sent. Please follow up if the confirmation is not received within about 24 hours (email) or a few days (mailed).

Student Scholarships 

Application Deadline: February 15

At the state tournament the Wisconsin Forensic Coaches' Association will be awarding scholarships to high school seniors from WFCA member schools. All scholarships are presented to students who hold a high regard for communications and who have demonstrated advanced skills in the area.

Eligibility, requirements, and submission instructions are available in the scholarship form. The form specifies mailed entries, but email is acceptable and preferred.

WFCA Scholarship Form

Student Officers

Application Deadline: February 15

The Student Advisory Committee shall serve as liaisons between the WFCA student body and the Executive Committee. 

Any student who is currently in their second or higher season of competing with a WFCA affiliated forensic team is eligible to apply for a Student Officer position.

Student Officer Application

Coaching Awards

Nomination Deadline: February 15

William Hintz Memorial Award for Coaching Excellence

The William Hintz Memorial Award for Coaching Excellence is an annual award that will be presented once a year to a High School forensic coach. Candidates must be active in WFCA, be supportive of the WFCA, demonstrate enthusiasm toward forensic activities, have a high regard and respect for fellow coaches, work toward the improvement of the WFCA, promote interscholastic forensic activities through the strength of his/her program, have acquired the respect of students he/she works with, and be supportive of or involved in other speech organizations such as the WDCA, NSDA, WCA, WISDAA, or NCFL.

William Hintz Award nomination form

Hall of Fame Award

The WFCA Hall of Fame Award is a special award presented to deserving forensic coaches. A nominee shall have served for at least 20 years.

Hall of Fame Award nomination form

The Coaching Awards are granted only once to an individual. Review the past winners before submitting a nomination.

Team Grants

Application Deadline: March 15

The WFCA offers a grant for financial assistance to attend the WFCA State Tournament.

The invitational tournaments of the January through March 2026 season are underway.

For further details see the Competition tab at the top and then either Calendar (all scheduled events) or Tournament Invites (invitations received so far).

All local tournaments are open to all schools (not just WFCA members) and are run independently by each school and therefore may have differences in format and rules which will be listed in the invitation.

The updated rules are available in the 2025-26 WFCA Handbook.

The season will conclude with the 2026 WFCA State Tournament on April 11 at Neenah High School, with Student Congress on April 10 in Winnebago County.

January 17
Sussex Hamilton/Arrowhead Tournament [ Results ]

January 24
Watertown Tournament – CANCELED [ SpeechWire ]

January 30 (Friday)
Marquette University High School Student Congress at Milwaukee City Hall [ Results ]

January 31
Appleton East Tournament [ Results ]
DeForest Tournament [ Results ]
Divine Savior Holy Angels Tournament [ SpeechWire ]

February 7
Slinger Tournament [ Results ]
Sun Prairie West Tournament [ Results ]
Wrightstown Tournament [ Results ]

February 14
Eau Claire North Tournament [ Results ]
Madison West Tournament [ Results: Student Congress, Forensics ]
Oshkosh West Tournament [ Results ]
West Bend Tournament [ Results ]

February 21
Altoona Tournament [ Results ]
Greater Metro Conference Tournament [ Results ]
Lodi Tournament [ Results ]
Milwaukee Public Schools Conference Tournament [ Results ]
Oshkosh North Tournament [ Results ]

February 28
Durand-Arkansaw Tournament [ Results ]
St. Mary Catholic (Neenah) Tournament [ Results ]
Sheboygan South Tournament (with Student Congress Feb 27) [ Results | Congress-Results ]

March 7
Kaukauna Tournament [ SpeechWire ]
Port Washington Tournament [ SpeechWire ]
St. Croix Falls Tournament [ SpeechWire ]
Vel Phillips Memorial (Madison) Tournament (with Student Congress March 6) [ SpeechWire | Congress-Tabroom ]

March 14
Eau Claire Memorial Tournament [ SpeechWire ]
Neenah Tournament (with Student Congress March 13) [ SpeechWire | Congress-Tabroom ]
UW-Whitewater Tournament [ SpeechWire ]

March 21
Sun Prairie East Tournament [ SpeechWire ]
Waupaca Tournament [ SpeechWire ]

March 28
Brookfield East Tournament (with Student Congress March 27)  [ Tabroom ]
Fond du Lac Tournament [ SpeechWire ]

April 10
WFCA State Student Congress in Winnebago County [ Overview ]

April 11
WFCA State Tournament in Neenah [ SpeechWire ]

The upcoming forensics season will soon be here. The competitive season starts in January, but getting ready starts now!

The year starts with the WFCA Fall Meeting on Saturday September 13 at Neenah High School or by joining online. There will be coaching sessions focussed on specific categories beginning at 10:00, and the business meeting is at 1:00. See the separate article for details. Agenda items include adopting the calendar and category topics.

The WFCA has many veteran coaches willing to assist and mentor any new or even experienced coaches with their programs. See the Coaching Assistance page for more. Don't wait for January to get your program rolling!

To be a part of WFCA and to have your school eligible for the WFCA State Tournament, please utilize the invoice that was sent. Further details are on the membership page. New coaches can also join our membership mailing list by sending a message (any subject / content) to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The WFCA calendar of invitational tournaments will be finalized at the fall meeting. The regular season runs from January 17 through March 28, and this year there are 29 tournaments being hosted in all corners of the state, providing several options each weekend. Thanks in advance for all the coaches and schools that provide ongoing tournament opportunities throughout the regular season. There are also 7 student congress competitions scheduled.

The season ends with the State Tournament in Neenah on Saturday April 11, with the State Student Congress the day before on Friday April 10. A big thanks to Neenah High School for being the State site.

Beyond the competition in Wisconsin, you may be interested in seeing what opportunities are available for national competition. NCFL will be in Washington DC May 23-24 and NSDA will be in Richmond VA June 14-19.

The Wisconsin Forensic Coaches' Association Handbook has been updated for 2025-26. It contains bylaws, history, competition rules, evaluation sheets, coaching awards, student congress guides, and tournament documents. It has been updated from last year's edition to include these changes that were implemented at the spring and fall meetings.

WFCA Handbook 2025-26.pdf

WFCA Category Rules 2025-26.pdf

• The Category Rules document has the same rule sheets that are found in the main handbook. They have been copied into this separate document to make it easy to share the rules with students and judges.

WFCA-WISDAA Blended Category Rules 2025-26.pdf

• This document is for tournament hosts that have a fully blended WFCA-WISDAA rule set.

• Some tournaments offer blended WFCA and WISDAA rules so that students may perform using the category rules for which they have prepared. If an element of a performance is allowed in either WFCA or WISDAA, the blended rules will allow students to follow the least restrictive guideline.

• This document contains the rules for all WFCA categories, modified to show allowances for WISDAA differences. Do not use these rule sheets for the WFCA State Tournament or other tournaments which specify WFCA-only rules.

WFCA Judges' Handbook

What's new in the 2025-26 Handbook – 2026 Topics and other changes:

• Moments in History – This season has two time periods; each student has the choice of
  1930-1939 and/or 1700-1799.

• Special Occasion Speaking – This season’s occasions are:
  A.     A pitch to support a new podcast series
  B.     A reality show audition
  C.     A speech to raise funds for a cause/charity
  D.     A criminal allocution statement

• Storytelling – This season’s topics are:
  A.       A story about siblings
  B.       A scary/horror story
  C.       A story about a first-time experience

• Farrago has an expanded Rule 2 to include these new sentences:

The title may identify the primary source (e.g., book, anthology, journal, magazine, newspaper, website, etc.) or the specific title within the primary source (e.g., a poem, a play, a short story, a journal/magazine article, a newspaper article, etc.).

A Works Cited of all sources must be available to tournament officials upon request.

Also, the sentence “All selections must be verbally identified by title and author.” now says “…title and/or author.”

• The Student Advisory Committee is a new standing committee in the Constitutional and Operating Bylaws.
  
  
• Statement On The Use Of Artificial Intelligence has been added.

• Dues have increased to $85 with a late fee after December 1. Tournament hosts have a December 1 deadline for current year dues.

• Guest school State Tournament participation has been eliminated.

• Deviations from WISDAA Rules:

In categories with manuscripts (Farrago, Group Interpretive Reading, Poetry, Prose), the manuscript may be used a prop in WISDAA and is therefore no longer a deviation.

In categories the categories of Farrago, Poetry, Prose, minimal platform movement is allowed in WISDAA (previously no walking was allowed) and is therefore no longer a deviation. This was implemented in 2023-24 but wasn’t corrected in the deviations.

WISDAA now has separate rules for Solo Acting Humorous and Solo Acting Serious and is therefore no longer a deviation.