In 1986, Linda Collier set out to restore the University of Missouri-Kansas City's debate program to its old glory. Right off the bat, her squad nabbed the National Championship for New Programs in the Cross Examination Debate Association. In the years since, her teams have brought home the CEDA National Championship trophy in 1994 and the CEDA National Sweepstakes Championship the following year. Since then, the squad has remained among the nation's top ten. Now, with a killer batch of new recruits and coaches, Collier is poised for another title run. The biggest score was Josh Coffman (a UMKC champion from the early '90s), who had been coaching at Emory University, which has won numerous national championships over the past four years. Collier also picked up Kamal Ghali, whose team won a novice national championship at Emory in 1998. These coaches will have some amazing talent to work with, notably Kansas City's own Mike Thomas (Central High School), who transferred this summer from Southwest Missouri State, where he won a junior varsity national championship. The squad adds two other Central alums, arguably the best ever to have debated for that school: Brandon Dial and Marcus Leach. In June, Dial and Leach finished tenth in the nation at the National Forensic League's championships in Atlanta. They lost to the eventual sixth-place finisher, Rosemount High School of Minneapolis. That team's top speaker was Matt Little (who tied Leach for tenth-place speaker at the tournament). And, wouldn't you know it, Collier also got him to join her squad. Little will be Leach's partner. With a stable like that, there'll be no stopping UMKC.
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