League History

A Washington native and graduate of Gonzaga College High School, Dan Masterson earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in chemistry at Georgetown University and spent more than two decades as a research chemist at the Food and Drug Administration. Alongside that career he coached debate from 1959 until his death, at Ursuline Academy in Bethesda, Georgetown Prep, and later St. John’s College High School and Immaculata High School. He led the league as President for more than ten years, became its first President Emeritus, and hosted the finals of national speech and debate contests in Washington.

Eleanor Wright was the librarian at Yorktown High School for 36 years and worked with its speech and debate team for more than 30. She led the league as President for twelve years and served twelve more as President Emeritus. Nationally, she was President of the National Catholic Forensic League, sat on its board for eight years, ran its national Policy and Sweepstakes tab rooms for nearly two decades, attended thirty Grand National Tournaments and hosted two of them. In the mid-1980s she brought schools from the league’s outer reaches, including the Shenandoah Valley, into competition, helping the league grow to more than fifty schools.

She was the first recipient of the Masterson Service Award, joined the Virginia High School League Hall of Fame, and was named Virginia Speech Coach of the Year. In the tab room she was famous for fairness: she would not even look at how her own students were doing, so her judgment stayed clear, and she reminded everyone that forensics was for the kids, and that it was supposed to be fun. At her family’s request, the league created a memorial fund in her name to give books to member schools’ libraries.

Judy Seward built a brand-new team at Centreville High School and coached there for 13 years, by some estimates working with nearly 400 students. She rose through the league as Tournament Director, Vice President for Speech and, for six years, President, and served as the NCFL’s Arlington Diocesan Director. At one point she led three regional speech and debate organizations at the same time.

Fairness was her hallmark. She wrote the league’s first booklet of instructions for new judges, was the first to bring computers into the tab room to make pairings fairer, and readily stepped in to host tournaments when others could not, leaving candy for the teachers whose classrooms were used, a tradition many host schools still follow. With Eleanor Wright, she persuaded the league that it could host the 2003 NCFL Grand National Tournament.