Ray began his Speech and Debate journey in high school, participating in policy debate and prose/poetry. These skills were used immediately in Boys’ State elections and later in college to secure a place on the student council. He’s been a drama teacher since 2003 and in 2011 he began teaching Public Speaking. That same year he became an assistant coach for his school’s Speech and Debate team, then later the Head Coach. From 2018 to 2020 he left coaching. In the first year of the pandemic he judged almost every weekend since all the tournaments were online. This inspired him to return to coaching in the summer of 2021. Ray has coached all but 1 of the NSDA events. He has coached over a thousand Speech and Debate students so far in his career and is excited to work with DebateDrills student to build their speech and debate skills.