KU Debate coach wins National Coach of the Year Award

Fri, 03/27/2026

Scott Harris

LAWRENCE — Brett Bricker, head debate coach at the University of Kansas, was awarded the Ross K. Smith Debate Coach of the Year award at the 2026 National Debate Tournament in recognition of his career achievements in coaching.

Brett Bricker holding plaque for the top coaching award at the 2026 National Debate Tournament. — Brett Bricker was awarded the Ross K. Smith Debate Coach of the Year award at the 2026 National Debate Tournament.

Bricker is the third KU coach to win the prestigious award, joining Donn Parson (1980) and Scott Harris (2006).

The award was presented at the opening assembly for this year’s National Debate Tournament, where three KU teams are competing.

Bricker has been KU’s head coach since 2014. In the past 13 seasons he has coached teams that won the NDT (2018), finished second at the NDT three times (2016, 2024, 2025), had a team reach the Final Four of the NDT in seven of the past nine NDTs (2016, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022, 2024, 2025) and had a top-four ranked team the year the NDT was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He has coached 19 NDT first-round, at-large teams and had 26 teams reach the elimination rounds at the NDT.

He has coached two regular season ranking champions (2018, 2025) and three NDT top individual speakers (2019, 2021, 2025). His teams have won numerous regular season tournament championships, including at Dartmouth College, Harvard University, Northwestern University, the University of Texas, Georgetown University, Wake Forest University, the University of Kentucky, Gonzaga University, the University of California at Berkeley, Binghamton University, Rutgers University, the University of Minnesota, Indiana University and Wayne State University, among others.

Head Coach Brett Bricker, Luna Schultz, Assistant Coach Ryan Cavanaugh and Rose Larson display the plaque honoring Schultz and Larson as one of the second-ranked team in the country from the 2025-2026 season.

Earlier this month, Bricker also received the Excellence in Coaching Award and the Judge of the Year Award from the American Debate Association.

“These awards are a testament not only to Brett’s excellence as a coach but of his commitment to helping his students be the best people they can be. I believe that Brett is the best debate coach in the country,” said Harris, the David B. Pittaway Director of KU Debate.

Bricker won the National Debate Tournament as a KU debater in 2009 and has more individual wins than any debater in the history of the program. He has three degrees from KU: a Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics and a master’s and doctorate in communication studies. He has been a member of the KU coaching staff since 2010.

This year’s KU team also received recognition at the opening awards ceremony. Seniors Rose Larson, Milwaukee, and Luna Schultz, Houston, tied with a team from the University of Michigan in finishing the regular season as the second-ranked teams in the country as selected by the NDT Ranking Committee. Emory University won the Copeland Award as the top-ranked team in the country, an award that Kansas won last year.

Three KU teams will be competing in the 78-team National Debate Tournament field March 26-29 at the University of Houston. In addition to Larson and Schultz, KU will be represented by the team of Owen Owings, Lee’s Summit, Missouri, with Zach Willingham, Topeka, and the team of Brooklynn Hato, Overland Park, and AJ Persinger, Lawrence.