1) general cognitive decline means this should be harder for him too
2) if all there is to see here needs notes to make decisions, I think the Resolute Desk is big enough
I was not a great debater but I became a pretty good coach (I am similarly a better editor than writer) and it's a very different perspective. Haven't done it in a couple years hopefully will pick it back up again if the kids get into it.
People who do extemp get to know the subject 15(?) minutes in advance and they get a notecard, right? Policy debaters research what common aff cases look like to prepare for being on neg! We got to prepare for whole varieties of absurd aff and neg cases!
My league has impromptu and extemp as two different events. In impromptu you don't get separate prep time and in extempt you get some number of minutes. 15 minutes, 30? It's been a while. Notecards were typical but some went completely without.
Of course the ones who went without were typically hypercompetitive type-As who were already better speakers than most litigators and almost all politicians below the national level.
Very good speakers. Very proud to have been part of their education, even in a limited way judging maybe a dozen rounds over their high school career. I would not trust them to run the country just because they talked fast good.
