It is hard to imagine that the 2008-2009 competitive year is nearing its end. From Wake Forest to Albany, New York, the season has provided many twists and turns for extempers all across the country. Next week all eyes will converge on Birmingham, Alabama for the extemp version of “glory’s last shot.” NFL will the time when many seniors give the final extemp speeches of their careers and for many that dream will come to an end well before the final round. However, all achievements of personal glory can be seen as relative. For some, simply making the national tournament is the culmination of a career of hard work, while for others anything less than a national championship will result in disappointment.
This edition of The Ex Files will have a staple of Extemp Central of the last two years. Last year’s International Extemp runner-up Omar Qureshi has written a topic area analysis for International extempers while Colin West (2006 US Extemp National Champion) and myself (2003 US Extemp Final Round National Champion) have collaborated on the topic area analysis for U.S. extempers. This edition also includes a topic brief on North Korea, a national tournament psychology summary by Qureshi, an extensive overview of the NFL National tournament by 2002 International Extemp runner-up Mark Royce, a discussion of extemp styles by Sebastian Pyrek, and then an NFL roundtable discussion with Michael Garson (2005 International Extemp finalist), Royce, and myself.
This is the last edition of The Ex Files for the 2008-2009 competitive year. We are pleased by the amount of support given to us by the extemp community and we hope to provide you with another year of topic briefs, topic area analysis, and strategy articles for the next competitive year. Announcements about additions to staffing for next year’s magazine will be made on the website over the summer and any suggestions for future content can be directed to me at logan.scisco@wku.edu. Thank you for your continued support of the site and this magazine and thank you to all of those who have contributed results and feedback to me this season. On behalf of myself and the staff of The Ex Files, good luck to all the extempers competing at NFL!
–Logan Scisco
NFL Nationals Edition (Volume 1, No. 7)
All links below are to PDF versions of the individual articles.
Complete NFL Nationals Edition (.pdf file)
From the Publisher by Logan Scisco
Extemp Central National Points Race by Logan Scisco
2009 NFL Nationals International Extemp Topic Area Analysis by Omar Quershi
2009 NFL Nationals United States Extemp Topic Area Analysis by Colin West and Logan Scisco
NFL Roundtable Discussion by Michael Garson, Mark Royce, and Logan Scisco
Extemporaneous Speaking at NFL Nationals by Mark Royce
National Tournament Psychology by Omar Quershi
On Developing Style by Sebastian Pyrek
Topic Brief: North Korean Aggression by Logan Scisco