Adam Thane

Biography

Adam is the Head Coach for the Bozeman High School (BHS) Speech and Debate Team, Chair of the National Speech and Debate Association (NSDA) District Committee for Montana East, a Bozeman High School English Teacher, and The Pan-African Speech and Debate League North America Coordinator. Adam coaches all four Montana High School Association (MHSA) sanctioned debate events—Policy, Lincoln Douglas, Public Forum, and Legislative; as well as the NSDA debate events—World Schools and Congressional. Adam starting coaching debate at Bozeman High School in 2004. He began teaching at BHS in 2007 and currently teaches several different English courses. Adam has coached multiple State Champions in every MHSA debate event and has coached 8 policy teams, 7 LD debaters, 4 Public Forum teams, and 4 World Schools Debate teams to elimination rounds at Nationals. He has coached the Hawkers to 6 team State Championships as well as to 12th (2021) and 11th (2022) place finishes at the National Speech and Debate Association High School National Tournament. Adam was born and raised in Bozeman. He competed in Policy Debate for his four-year debate career at Bozeman High School. He also did Humorous Oral Interpretation his senior year at ABC tournaments. His junior year, he won both prose/poetry and policy debate at the Carroll College Tournament. He was a finalist at state his junior year, and was a member of the first ever Bozeman policy debate team to break to elimination at Nationals his senior year. Adam attended Saint John’s University and Montana State University, graduating from the latter with a degree in English Literature. He was named the Outstanding Graduating Senior by the English Department at MSU in 2007. Adam took a roundabout route to his education and finished school after a ten-year hiatus from academia, during which he ran security for bars both in Ireland and in the United States. Adam's daughter Ciara graduated from Bozeman High School in 2022.