Gabe Rusk is currently the Director of Debate at the Fairmont Preparatory Academy in Anaheim, California and is a member of the National Speech and Debate Association’s Public Forum Topic Selection Committee. He’s judged over 1,000 rounds of Public Forum Debate & has been coaching for over 14 years. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Denver where he attended on a debate scholarship and a Master’s Degree from Oxford University in Comparative Religious Studies. During college, he won 4th place at the national British Parliament championships. While at Oxford he was the Vice President of the Student Union representing all international graduate students and was elected as the equality officer at the Oxford Debate Union. While at Oxford his dissertation focused on the history of the First Amendment. During high school, Gabe was a Public Forum competitor himself winning the prestigious Tournament of Champions in 2010. Gabe has been a coach in Public Forum Debate for over fourteen years. Over that time his students have won or finaled at tournaments like UC Berkeley, UNLV, NDCA, ASU, Glenbrooks, Stanford, Georgetown, UK Season Opener, the TOC and more. In 2024 one of his individual teams had the highest TOC Gold Bid count, 8, by the end of the season. Gabe has also been the director, or senior instructor at over a dozen summer institutes over the last fourteen years including as Curriculum Director at ISD and the Think Tank at Stanford. Gabe believes debate and public speaking teach critical thinking and news literacy that are indispensable in the 21st Century and has made it his life mission to spread such skills.