Overview
The Coolidge Cup is a national invitational speech and debate tournament sponsored by the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation. It is held in President Coolidge’s historic hometown of Plymouth, Vermont, and takes place each year during the week of the Fourth of July. More than $20,000 in scholarship prize money is awarded to the top finishers. The competition days are July 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. (Competitors should treat July 1st and 5th as travel days.) It is a fully chaperoned experience, and most travel expenses are covered for competitors.
How to Qualify
To compete in the Coolidge Cup, students must qualify in either declamation or debate through various Coolidge Cup qualifier competitions held across the country. See the list of qualifying methods for details. 12 students are invited to compete in Declamation at the Coolidge Cup, and roughly 80 students are invited to compete in Debate at the Coolidge Cup.
Prizes
More than $20,000 in scholarship prizes will be awarded at this year’s Coolidge Cup.
Declamation Format
The 2025 Coolidge National Declamaton Contest begins with an asynchronous, video-based contest. Students choose one of the three excerpted speeches in this year’s speech packet and submit a video delivering it.
At the Coolidge Cup, each of the 12 qualifying students in this event will declaim multiple speech excerpts from speeches by President Coolidge. Some of these declamations will be delivered in front of a small panel of judges, and some will be delivered in front of judges and peers at one of our larger assemblies. Students will be scored at each of these, and ranked based on their cumulative scores. These speeches are assigned a few weeks in advance of the tournament so that students may familiarize themselves with the material. It is not expected that students memorize the speech excerpts.
Debate Format, Resolution, & Research Brief
For debate, students will compete in the Coolidge 1v1 “Singles” format for six preliminary rounds over the first two days of the tournament (July 2nd and 3rd). All debaters with four or more wins will advance to the elimination portion of the tournament, eventually ending in a championship round on July 4th. The 2025 Coolidge Cup Debate resolution will be announced in April.
Volunteer to Judge at the Coolidge Cup
The Coolidge Foundation highly values the idea of the “citizen judge,” as we believe that good speech and debate should be aimed at making a logical case that any person can understand. Volunteer judges do not need any prior experience in speech, debate, or judging. If you are interested in judging, take a look at our information for judges. We will provide all the judge training you need. If you are interested in judging, please register to judge.
Competitors are not obligated to provide a certain number of judges. However, if your coach or family member is joining you at the Coolidge Cup and is interested in judging, he or she can indicate that they would like to judge when registering.
Register for the Coolidge Cup
Registration for the 2025 Coolidge Cup is now open and will close at 11:59 PM EDT on Tuesday, May 27. You must have received and accepted an invitation from the Coolidge Foundation to compete in the 2025 Coolidge Cup. Completing the registration form truly makes your participation official! This information is extremely important to our planning and it is required in order to secure your spot. Review the travel information on this page before proceeding. Please do not fill out this form using a smart phone. It will not work correctly. Use a computer.
2018 Coolidge Cup winners with Robert L. Luddy, Maria Luddy, Ben Voth, and Jared Rhoads