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Champion Coaches Ready to Train You

Training Minds Ministy has some of the best coaches in the country. These include authors of the bestselling curriculum in the league as well as some national champions from years past. Those who attend our Colorado Conference will be among the best of the best, receiving the training necessary to get ahead in competition. The following are coaches and bios.

Lee Strobel and Mark Mittelberg

Keynote Speakers, Wednesday Night of Conference

Training Minds Ministry is pleased to have Lee Strobel and Mark Mittelberg as keynote speakers Wednesday night at our Colorado Conference. Mr. Strobel and Mr. Mittelberg will bring great value to the speech and debate training.

Lee Strobel Mr. Strobel is bestselling author of Case for Christ. He was an award-winning legal editor for the Chicago Tribune before turning to Christianity. Today he is an "atheist-turned-Christian" and a New York Times best-selling author of nearly twenty books. Mr. Strobel has been interviewed on numerous national television programs, including ABC’s 20/20, Fox News, and CNN. Training Minds Ministry is pleased to have such an extinguished defender of the Christian faith.

Mark Mittelberg is also a best–selling author, a sought–after speaker, and a leading strategist in evangelism and apologetics–oriented outreach. He is the primary author of the Becoming a Contagious Christian training course, through which more than one million people around the world have learned to effectively and naturally communicate their faith to others. He has co-authored several projects with noted Christian leaders like Lee Strobel, Bill Hybels, Norman Geisler, and several others. Mark and his wife, Heidi, have two children who have attended Training Minds Camps in the past, and are longtime fans of "training minds for action."

What better speakers to share the value of "training minds for action" (1 Peter 1:13), the key verse of this ministry? Mr. Strobel and Mr. Mittelberg will speak together Wednesday night at the Training Minds Conference, placed perfectly between the conclusion of limited-prep (most notably Apologetics) and the beginning of debate. Registrants for any of the speaking or debating tracks are welcome to attend this keynote address.

Matthew Baker

Research Camp, Florida Team-Policy Camp, Author of Blue Book Advanced

Matt today heads up Blue Book Advanced as its lead editor. In his high school days, he competed in NCFCA’s Region 8 for 3 years. During that time, he qualified for nationals in team debate 3 times and won 2nd place team at the National Tournament in both the 2003-2004 and the 2004-2005 seasons. Among other awards, he won the 2004 Georgia State Championship, the 2005 North Carolina Open Pre-qualified Tournament, and was a finalist in extemp at the 2005 National Tournament. He also served as assistant coach of Equitas Debate Club in his senior year. In college, Matt led the Bob Jones University squad to three final round finishes at the NEDA (National Educational Debate Association) National Tournament culminating in the 2007-2008 national championship. In addition, he won first place speaker at the 2008 NEDA national tournament and was named All-American. Demonstrating flexibility across the broad-spectrum of intercollegiate debate, he has won multiple awards in the NPDA (National Parliamentary Debate Association) including 1st place team (open division) in his parliamentary debate debut. He holds a total of 65 debate titles.

Matt’s research skills have received recognition outside of the realm of forensics. His senior thesis was the 2008 receipt of the Leila R. Custard Award for historical research. In addition, He has won awards or published papers with the Fraser Institute, the Lincoln Forum, the Atlas Economic Research Institute, and the Association of Private Enterprise Education on subjects ranging from Islamic political-economy to the Mexican War. Currently a senior at Bob Jones University, Matt plans to graduate with a double-major in accounting and history in May 2009. He serves as Treasurer of the SC College Republican Party and is co-captain of BJU’s award-winning mock trial team.

Shane Baumgardner

Limited-Prep, Impromptu

Shane Baumgardner competed for 4 years in the NCFCA and won numerous awards. He is the 2009 National Champion in impromptu and extemporaneous speaking. He also placed 6th in LD at the 2009 championships and has won the Region III title in both Lincoln-Douglas and Team-Policy debate.

Shane will be finishing high school and persuing credits toward a bachelor of arts degree in political science this fall. He hopes to continue on to graduate or law school from there. When not doing school or speech and debate he enjoys playing sports of any kind, but particularly ultimate frisbee, football and basketball. He is also highly involved in Juvenile Justice programs in Colorado Springs and has prosecuted numerous cases under the Teen Court program.

Chap Bettis

Apologetics, Author of Silver Book

Chap grew up outside Birmingham, Alabama and came to Christ as a child. After graduating from Brown University, he felt called to stay and reach New England with the good news of the gospel. Many years later, Chap is the teaching pastor at New Covenant Christian Fellowship, a family-integrated church in Attleboro, Massachusetts.

Chap entered into the NCFCA Apologetics field when he was asked by a homeschool co-op to prepare a group of students for competition. As a homeschool dad, he loved NCFCA. But competition combined with doctrine and apologetics? This must be heaven! Having taught a club for the past three years, he is even more passionate about helping young people know what they believe and why they believe it. He has authored an Apologetics workbook to make this category more accessible to a greater number of young people.

This concern for passing on the faith has spawned The Apollos Project, a nonprofit ministry dedicated to connecting teens to their faith, families to their teens, and churches to their families. He has also written Evangelism for the Tongue-Tied, help for the 94% of us who have difficulty sharing our faith.

Most importantly, Chap is the husband of Sharon, and the father of four homeschooled students, Kara, Chapman, Rebekah and Nate.

Maggie Carabelos

Team-Policy Debate, Club Coaching, Events Coordinator

Maggie Carabelos has been a mainstay in the Colorado speech and debate community from its inception. She was introduced to forensics in high school and coaches her speech and debate club with a strong focus on teambuilding and community service. Maggie has been coaching in the league since 1999 and has coached SALT for the past six years with National and Regional recognition.

With a background in Early Childhood Development, Maggie is passionate about teaching children of all ages. She has created curriculum for many of her courses and teaches classes in pre-school literature, culinary arts at high school and pre-school levels, yearbook, choir, drama, constitutional law, civics, and public speaking.

She is the Events Coordinator for Training Minds Ministries, and has extensive experience in tournament directing and administration. When she is not busy teaching or training amazing speakers, she coordinates and caters weddings and events, manages political campaigns and produces High School Theater for CaryAnne Productions.

Maggie and her husband Leonard have been married for 20 years and homeschooling their two sons and nephews for the past fifteen years in Thornton, Colorado.

Joanna Griffith

Apologetics, Platforms

Joanna spent three years competing in NCFCA winning over 50 awards in Team-Policy debate, Lincoln-Douglas debate, and numerous speech events. She competed in Apologetics at the national championship for three consecutive years, advancing to out rounds each year. Her awards include 1st place Sweepstakes at the 2008 Colorado and Texas National Opens, 1st place Lincoln Douglas debater and speaker at the 2007 Seattle National Open, 4th place Impromptu at the 2008 National Championship, and six top-2 placings in Extemporaneous and Apologetics at National Opens. During her senior year of high school, Joanna worked as a peer coach for her local club in Colorado and she looks forward to continued involvement in the league as an alumni coach and judge.

Currently, Joanna is at Patrick Henry College where she is pursuing a degree in Government. She is continuing her debate career at the collegiate level where she has won awards in both policy and parliamentary style debate.

Cody Herche

Extemp, Debate, Author of Keys to Extemp and Gold Book

Cody Herche is the author of Keys to Extemp (Monument, 2008) and edits Gold Book: The current events sourcebook. As a high school forensics competitor, he won the national Team Debate title in 2006, extemp speaking championship in 2005, top Lincoln-Douglas speaker award in 2005 and the California Team Debate championship in 2004. Herche set a tournament record that still stands at the 2004 Worlds Parliamentary for individual speaker points with 296 out of a possible 300. As a coach, Herche has taught at camps and conferences around the country and instructed numerous state and national qualifiers, finalists and champions, including the 2007 Team Policy champions and 2009 extemp champion and runner-up.

Inducted into Phi Beta Kappa as a junior and a member of Phi Kappa Phi, Herche graduated Summa Cum Laude from the University of the Pacific with his Bachelor's degree in political economics and French studies. He earned the Jan Good Award (2009) for outstanding original French essay, was a Student Affairs officer and was a columnist for the student newspaper. Herche has been accepted to Cornell Law School in New York where he plans to start in the Fall. In his spare time, Herche enjoys playing basketball and reading non-fiction.

Travis Herche

Interp, Debate, Author of Keys to Interp

Two-time NCFCA Hall of Famer Travis Herche shares nine years of experience with the NCFCA. He competed at five National tournaments and was nationally ranked in both forms of debate (5th place TP team 2003, 6th place LD team and 3rd place LD speaker 2005). He competed at the national level in ten individual events (punctuated by an Iron Man appearance in 2005 and a Dramatic Interp Championship in 2006). Since then, Travis has coached across the country, helping students to achieve their own Nationals success stories. His book Keys to Interp comes out this summer.

Travis is a part time filmmaker who has appeared in films from New York to LA. He is a writer of both fiction and non-fiction, and teaches reading and English as a Second Language.

Chris Jeub

Team-Policy Debate, Author of Home School Speech & Debate, Ministry President

Coach Jeub is president of Training Minds Ministry and owner of Monument Publishing. He co-authors Blue Book every year with one of the leading voices of team-policy debate, Vance Trefethen. He works with coaches from across the country to bring the best products possible into the hands of young debaters. Mr. Jeub has taught debate at camps, local clubs, and to his own family since 1995.

Mr. Jeub resides in Monument, Colorado, with his wife and 13 of his 15 children (two are adults, one in Denver and the other in Australia), five of whom are "debate age" this year. You'll likely see Mr. Jeub at tournaments, most certainly at Nationals cheering on his own children, his club's students, his campers, and all the debaters in the nation who work through his training materials.

Samantha Nasser

Lincoln-Douglas and Team-Policy Debate

After four years of competition in Region 4, Samantha Nasser graduated from the NCFCA as on of the top 5 competitors in the nation in both Team Policy and Lincoln-Douglas debate. In all four of her competitive years, Samantha competed at the national tournament, placing 3rd in Lincoln-Douglas debate in 2008 and 5th in Team Policy debate in 2007. She was ranked as one of the top 10 speakers in the nation her final two years of competition, including a 3rd place finish at the National Tournament in 2008.

A freshman at Hillsdale college, Samantha actively participates on the Hillsdale Parlimentary debate team, where she took 1st place at a NEDA tournament in the Fall. She plans to help train young speakers and debaters throughout the summer by teaching forensics camps.

Kaitlin Nelson

Lincoln-Douglas and Team-Policy Debate

Kaitlin participated in NCFCA for five years. She debated in Lincoln-Douglas for three years and is currently exploring Team-Policy in her senior year. Additionally, she has competed in nine out of the ten speech events. She took 7th place at the 2009 national tournament in Lincoln-Douglas debate and 2nd in extemporaneous speaking. In 2010, Kaitlin enjoyed winning three consecutive tournaments in Team-Policy and qualifying to nationals at the Massachusetts Open, where she took 2nd in Apologetics and 1st in Thematic Interpretation.

Back home in Colorado, Kaitlin is a speech peer coach at her local club and has helped teach Lincoln-Douglas debate. She hopes to continue both debating and coaching through college. Kaitlin plans on majoring in marketing or public relations, where she can continue to learn about the psychology of rhetoric and persuasion.

Rob Parks

Team-Policy Debate, Florida Camp Coach

Coach Parks captained his High School NFL debate team from 1978-1981. A graduate of Bowdoin College and Franklin Pierce Law Center, Captain Parks served as an Air Force JAG officer for 5 years before starting his own private practice in North Carolina specializing in arguing criminal cases before appellate courts. During that time he appealed a half dozen cases to the US Supreme Court and regularly argued cases in front of the highest courts in our land: including the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, US Court of Claims, US Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces and the US 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. He also spent time as an adjunct professor teaching Torts, Criminal Law and Consumer Law at Wesley College and Trial Advocacy at Widener University School of Law.

After a decade of unsuccessfully trying to fix broken adults through the criminal justice system, Rob changed his career focus to building better youth-- spending the last 9 years working for the Boy Scouts of America. He also volunteers as the Scoutmaster for his son’s troop, with Kiwanis, community mediation, the American Legion’s Oratorical and Boy’s State programs and judges NCFCA debate in the local area. Rob lives with his wife and son in Pomfret, MD.

Larry Sparks

Extemp, Team-Policy Debate, Club Coaching

Larry debated in National Forensic League debate while in high school from 1982-1984. In college he continued to build debate, research and communication skills at Bethany College in Scotts Valley, CA. At Bethany, he met and married his wife, Kristina, in 1987. Larry has spent his career in Sales and Management with companies like Circle K Stores, Philip Morris USA, Dale Carnegie Training and State Farm Insurance. He now owns an Allstate Insurance agency in Colorado Springs.

As a homeschool dad of young kids, he stumbled across the NCFCA when he was invited to be a community judge. Since that time he has become more and more involved in the speech and debate community. He and his family live in Falcon, CO where he coaches largest club in Region 3, RESOLVE.

Larry also serves in his church, currently as Treasurer and Chairman of the Deacon Board. He often speaks at churches as a representative of Gideons International.

Vance Trefethen

Research Camp, Team-Policy Debate, Author of Blue Book Cases

Coach Vance debated in National Forensic League debate while in high school from 1979-1982. In college, he judged at high school NFL tournaments in North Carolina. After college, he moved around the country for various jobs, including some time with the Defense Department in the Washington, D.C., area and several years at the headquarters of Wal-Mart in Arkansas.

After moving back to North Carolina, he once again got involved in debate by volunteering as an assistant coach for public school NFL debaters. A homeschooling dad himself, he realized the growing potential and benefit of homeschool debate and switched over to coaching homeschoolers a couple years later. In 2001, he helped Chris Jeub with bringing The Blue Book to a more advanced level. He has been co-authoring this, editing Blue Booko Advanced, and writing its Blue Book Midseason ever since.

Currently working in New Hampshire as a computer programmer for a French engineering software company, Vance also volunteers as an instructor with the annual American Legion Boys State program. He and his wife, Bridget, have two daughters, Charlotte and Rebecca.

Mike Winther

Team-Policy and Lincoln-Douglas Debate, Club Coaching

Mike’s debate experience spans across three debate leagues and 30 years; it includes experience as both participant and coach; and includes both academic and real-world debate.

For 7 years he was an avid competitor. In high school, he competed for 3 years in the National Forensic League (NFL), earning a double ruby and, with various partners, taking numerous tournament awards including 10th place in state his junior year and 3rd place his senior year. In college, he competed in NDT for North Idaho College and later as a Jayhawk at the University of Kansas. After earning a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science, Mike worked as a professional campaign consultant which included opportunities to prepare political candidates for their own debates.

Mike and his wife, Mary, currently coach a home-school debate club called "Modesto Debate" which, at over 60 students each year, is one of the largest clubs in the country. The Winthers have coached teams into the top 16 at the national tournament each of the 10 years that they have coached and have had 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th and 10th place teams in the final ranking.

Mike is the President of the Institute for Principle Studies, a Christian think-tank and educational organization. He regularly teaches courses on government and economics and has developed a 20-hour course called "Biblical Principles of Government" which he has taught to several thousand people over the past ten years. Mike has written articles on many public policy issues and is a frequent lecturer at debate camps as well as a frequent speaker at many non-debate conferences. He is a member of the Mackinac Center For Public Policy’s board of Scholars.

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