Our Coaches
Adam Thane -
Head Coach & Debate Coach
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.
Email: adam.thane@bsd7.org
Lila Michael -Lead Interp Coach
Lila is lead coach for the Interp events. Lila teaches English I and other courses, and has worked with BHS off and on for several years, in 2003-2007 and in 2014-present.
Lila was born in Missoula and grew up in Bozeman. She was a Hawker all four years of high school as an Orator under Joyce Hannula for a season, and as an Interpreter with Mr. Kane. Lila attended Montana State University where she earned a teaching certification and B.A. in Media and Theatre. She holds a Masters of Fine Art in Acting from Indiana University in Bloomington, IN.
Lila is married to playwright Greg Owens, a native Hoosier. She has two daughters, Lorelei and Eiseley; a green-eyed ranch cat named Suki; and a standard poodle named Flufferson.
Email: lila.michael@bsd7.org
Max Hatten - Debate Coach
Max is an Assistant Coach for the Bozeman High School Speech and Debate Team, and while his focus is primarily Lincoln Douglas, he also coaches all four MHSA sanctioned debate events—Policy, Lincoln Douglas, Public Forum Debate, and Legislative Debate—as well as the NSDA debate events—World Schools Debate and Congressional Debate.
Max is currently pursuing a double-major at Montana State University, seeking degrees in English Literature and English Education. He hopes to one day be an English teacher at Bozeman High School. He began coaching during the 2021-2022 season after returning to Bozeman from Key Largo, Florida, where he taught scuba diving, and worked on dive boats for nine years. He was a PADI Open Water Scuba Instructor, and remains a certified normoxic trimix diver, and a basic level cave diver. While Max maintains a love for the underwater world, he finds fewer opportunities to dive in Montana than in the Keys. He has a passion for birds and birding, and can often be found pointing excitedly as the bus passes an interesting feathered specimen.
Max also serves as a trustee for the David Winton Bell Foundation, an organization that provides funding and grants primarily to programs addressing environmental preservation and education, critical social education, and human service needs in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul region, where much of his extended family resides.
He was born and raised in Bozeman, graduating from Bozeman High School in 2011. He joined the Hawkers as a Freshman in Policy Debate but moved to Lincoln Douglas Debate in his sophomore year. In 2010 he was an LD State Champion and National Qualifier. Since returning to Bozeman he has helped coach State Champions and National Qualifiers in all debate events.
Email: max.hatten@bsd7.org
Emily Daniels - Memorized Coach
Emily Daniels is the coach for memorized speech events. While attending Bozeman High from 2016-2020, she was a Hawker under the wonderful Lila Michael. With a primary focus on memorized public address, she competed in all interp (interpretation) speech events as well as original oratory. In her final season as a competitor in 2020, she earned the original oratory state championship.
Since graduating from Bozeman High, she has coached oratory and informative for the past four Hawker seasons, helping to mentor competitors to one state championship and at least 11 Hawkers to qualify for oratory and informative nationals.
Graduating from Montana State University in 2024 with an Associates Degree in Applied Sciences of Aviation, Emily plans to use her degree for future opportunities in the aviation field. C
urrently, she works as a certified flight instructor, a bartender/server, and a content creator for the orange drink brand Sunny D. Emily thinks it’s important to note that any and all achievements she’s been able to accomplish are a direct result of the skills and ambition that develop from being an active part of this great team.
Emily loves mountains, writing, and people.
Chris Warren - Short Prep Coach
Chris Warren is the coach for Short Prep. They teach 8th-grade ELA and Social Studies at Sacajawea Middle School. They also help with the middle school Speech and Debate program.
Chris worked with the Hawkers during the 2019-2020 season before leaving to teach in Shepherd, MT where they head coached the Speech and Debate program there from 2020-2023. Chris returned to working with the Hawkers in 2023. In their years of coaching, they have coached both state champions and national qualifiers in five different events.
Chris went through Bozeman School District from 3rd grade until graduation. They were a Hawker under Head Coach Adam Thane and competed in Memorized Public Address and Expository Speaking. Chris attended Montana State University, graduating with a degree in English with a focus in Education. There they received the Outstanding Student Teacher Award. Chris went on to get their Master of Education in Literacy from the American College of Education in 2023.
Email: christina.warren@bsd7.org
Jake Hoskins - Assistant Debate Coach
Jake is an Assistant Debate coach for the Hawkers with a focus on policy debate.
He began teaching and coaching debate for Flathead High School in Kalispell in 2018. In 2022, Jake returned home to Bozeman as an assistant coach and teacher at Bozeman High. In that time, Jake has helped produce four state championship teams in policy debate and five nationally qualifying partners.
Jake was born and raised in Bozeman and attended Bozeman High. He discovered policy debate his last two years of high school after a knee injury forced him out of contact sports. Under the tutelage of Hawker Head Coach, Jim Maxwell, and then relatively new Assistant Coach, Adam Thane, Jake and his partner Morgan Klaas won the 2008 Policy Debate State Championship with a 44-8 record!
After Bozeman High, Jake attended the University of Montana, graduating with a teaching endorsement and B.A. in English Literature. He debated on the University of Montana Parliamentary Debate team (NPDA) under Head Coach Nathan Miller.
Jake has worked as a fly fishing guide for over 14 years around Bozeman and in the wilderness areas surrounding Glacier National Park. He has a Black Lab/Rez dog named Scully, a niece and two nephews, and a tendency of going missing during hunting season or any significant hatches on the Gallatin.
Email: jake.hoskins@bsd7.org