The Companion Guide for Speech & Debate Coaches is a supplement for new and experienced coaches. The tips, activities, handouts, samples, exercises, and graphic organizers presented in its pages will prove to be a helpful addition to any coach's existing resources. It begins with basic team management to include recruiting, planning, and tournaments. Then, it explores ways coaches can work with students competing in speech, interpretation of literature, and debate. "Briscoe's Companion Guide is an invaluable resource for Speech & Debate educators and coaches. While a useful resource to all experience levels, I use this text in my teacher education prep classes and have received a great deal of positive feedback from students who are now teaching in the field, sharing how much this resource has helped them successfully teach and lead a team early in their career. This text is an absolute "must have" in your teacher toolkit." - Dr. Nicole Freeman, Assistant Professor of Communication Studies & Assistant Director of Forensics, University of Central Missouri This book was the result of conversations among the coaches on the Eastern Missouri District Committee of the National Speech & Debate Association. As new coaches regularly asked us how to become a coach, we realized that most of us had never been a "new coach" because we grew up in the activity as students. As the Program Director of the St. Louis Urban Debate League, I was also responsible for helping new coaches navigate the world of competitive debate. Thus, I spent time reflecting on and collaborating with some of my peers on the essential needs of new coaches. This book seeks to address the questions that beginning coaches have about the activity. How do I start a team? How do I recruit students to the team? What should my role be? How do I teach something that I've never had experience with? What should I be doing in the classroom or at practice? How do I prepare my students for their first tournament? "This resource provides a lot of helpful insight into building and running a successful program." - Katy Bishoff, Debate Coach at Girdwood Middle School Shawn F. Briscoe has spent more than a quarter of a century immersed in the world of academic speech and debate. He believes in the power of the activity and actively seeks to help others reap the benefits of it. He has coached and taught in a variety of educational and competitive settings to include local circuits dominated by lay judges, the high school national circuit, and on the intercollegiate worlds debating circuit. He previously served as the Program Director of the Saint Louis Urban Debate League. Currently, he teaches in the communication department at Glendale Community College in Arizona.