COACHES

VICTOR RIVAS UMANA

Victor has over ten years of competitive experience in Policy Debate, in high school as a competitor for James Logan HS, and in college at the University of Redlands. While competing in high school, he was a Kentucky Scholar at the Kentucky National Debate Institute and attended the highly selective Dartmouth Debate Institute. His hard work and preparation translated into tons of success in his local state circuit and elimination rounds at annual tournaments held at Cal State Long Beach, University of the Pacific, Stanford, and UC Berkeley. Additionally, he was a three-time qualifier to the CA State Championship Tournament in Policy Debate, and finished his career as a Quarter-Finalist (Top 8) at the 2005 CA State Championships. After his debate career, Mr. Rivas Umana went on to work with special interest and labor groups, including the ACLU, Southern Poverty Law Center, and the National Union of Healthcare Workers. Outside of his work with The Golden State Academy, he also serves as the Head Debate Coach at Mission San Jose HS in Fremont, CA and previously coached at the Brooks Academy. At Mission San Jose in 2 years, he has coached teams to 10 TOC bids collectively as well as the winners and runner ups of local and national tournaments like Stanford, Berkeley, Presentation, the University of the Pacific and the Silver and Black invitational in Alta, UT. He has qualified teams to the Tournament of Champions along with the State, Nationals and Catholic Nationals tournament. At the Brooks Academy his efforts have translated into success as well. He along with the rest of the Public Forum staff coached several teams deep into elimination rounds including the runner-ups to the State champions in Public Forum. At the Middle School National Tournament he helped coach all six teams into elimination rounds with all teams advancing deep into elimination rounds including the eventual national champions. Countless of his students have also received top speaker awards at various tournaments including the top 2 speakers at the Middle School National tournament.

STEPHAN BROOKS

Stephan grew up in Union City, CA and started his forensics career competing and coaching for the nationally recognized program at James Logan High School from 2001-2011. He specialized in Public Forum Debate, winning his school's home tournament (the MLK Jr. Invitational) in 2004 & 2005. He would then go on to coach back-to-back CHSSA CA State Championship teams in 2007 & 2008. He was inducted into the James Logan Forensics Hall of Fame in 2011. After leaving Logan he served as the head debate coach at several Bay Area schools: Hopkins, Mission San Jose, Archbishop Mitty, and Amador Valley. He have taught at annual summer camps hosted at UC Berkeley and Stanford. He ran a private program, The Brooks Academy, with several Logan alumni that was once the largest member school of the National Junior Forensics League (now the NSDA), and winner of the NJFL's Overall School of Excellence award three straight years: 2013-2015.