Forensics Menu

Steve Clemmons
Assistant Director of Forensics

Steve Clemmons joins the University of Oregon with over twenty-five years of involvement in academic debate as a competitor and educator of both high school and college students. Before coming to Eugene, Steve was a Director of Forensics and Teacher at Skyline HS (Oakland, CA) and the college debate coach at Santa Clara University. Clemmons is pursuing his Master’s at the School of Education, a program ranked in the top-10 nationally.

Clemmons twice attended the NDT (top-twenty speaker) and was a three-time participant at CEDA Nationals (octa-finalist twice and a top-twenty speaker) and participated twice at NPDA Nationals (twice in the elimination rounds, semifinalist, top ten speaker)

Clemmons coached High School National Champions in Congress, Extemporaneous Speaking and Lincoln Douglas debate, and qualified dozens of students to the Tournament of Champions, and over a hundred students to the California State Tournament. His college students have qualified multiple times to the NDT and NPTE National Tournament, with wins at most of the major national tournaments in policy debate and parliamentary debate.

Ben Dodds
Forensics Coordinator

Ben Dodds has been a part of Oregon forensics for over a decade. He debated for Ashland (OR) High School from 2000- 2004 and was the 2004 state policy champion. Dodds attended Gonzaga University before transferring to Oregon where his debate achievements included appearing in an NPDA final round and finishing 5th at NPTE. He was ranked first in the country after winning three of the largest tournaments and three first-place speaker awards (2008-2009). As a competitor and coach, Dodds has been with Oregon for five national championship rounds, a sweepstakes national championship and coached two outright national champions. He was the most preferred judge at the 2011 NPTE national tournament. Dodds also helps direct the Lane Debate League in the Eugene/Springfield area.