 Buckley as a freshman in 2015 became the first freshman and the first African-American to be named top speaker at the NPDA tournament.Buckley outranked 320 other debaters representing top programs such as the University of California, Berkeley, Wheaton, Rice and Whitman to receive the James "Al" Johnson Top Speaker Award.That same year, Lindsey Hancock and Hunter Pilkinton competed at the National Parliamentary Tournament of Excellence (NPTE) at William Jewell College in Missouri.