Debate team describes work put in for a successful season

Walking to the fixed forum after school ends, senior advanced debater Dean Ziegelman opens up his laptop to begin practicing for his debate. After compiling hours of resources and facts to support his argument, he strives to make his speech as fast as possible to include all the facts.

Staying late and putting in extra hours, Ziegelman, with the assistance of debate coach Jared Zuckerman, plans for his upcoming debate.

Zuckerman teaches both novice and advanced debate students. He said that preparing for a debate consists of two big factors.

“I would say that 70 percent of it is research and finding out what other schools are reading, staying on top of the news and making sure that everyone has assignments,” Zuckerman said. “The other 30 percent is practice, giving speeches, working with the assistant coaches, refining the research that we do to fit the arguments that we’re doing, then collaborating with our assistant coaches on strategies and ideas.”

In addition to those factors, Ziegelman, who has debated since his freshman year, sticks to a regimen of attending two debate classes and staying after school for up to two hours each day. He said that a good debater needs to see both sides to every argument.

“A debater needs to be able to separate their arguments from reality,” Ziegelman said. “I guess every good debater needs to be the devil’s advocate and be able to look at different issues from multiple angles because the nature of debate is that we have to switch sides. So, one round we will think that the United States should do something and then the next round the United States shouldn’t do something. It’s really confusing, but that’s the great thing about debate is that you have to switch sides. It proliferates the best arguments and definitely leads to better argumentation skills.”

Along with learning how to perfect arguments, junior Sumaya Hussaini, an advanced debater, said she thinks debate can help people acquire speaking skills.

“I think it gives you good social and speaking skills, because if you do debate, you are comfortable talking in front of larger audiences,” Hussaini said. “I know a lot of people are kind of stage-shy or they’re just afraid of talking in public spaces in front of a bunch of people, but I think debate has helped me with that because I’m more comfortable talking in front of large audiences and I wasn’t a few years ago.”

To obtain these speech and argumentation skills and get the all the benefits of debate, Zuckerman said a tremendous amount of discipline and commitment is necessary.

“The time commitment is probably the hardest part,” Zuckerman said. “To be really elite at [debate] means you have to give up other things. But that’s just true at being elite at anything. You have to make some sacrifices. I think that that’s asking a lot. Another thing is that you know you’re going up against the smartest people that every single school has to offer, so the margin for error is really slim. Just like if you’re playing a varsity sport, you’re going up against the best athletes that every school has to offer. So the difference between winning and losing can be really small and you have to have a lot of attention to detail to make sure that you’re able to win on the margins.”

As a novice debater, sophomore Anjali Roy said she was a little nervous about the amount work she would have to put into the class.

“I was a little nervous because I didn’t know anything about debate,” Roy said. “But, as time progressed I got more comfortable and used to the workload and what was expected. But because I was nervous toward the beginning, I think it showed how much I cared about my success in debate.”

Like Roy, Zuckerman said most people don’t know what debate is, or have a warped perception of it from the media.

“What people expect and what we do are totally different,” Zuckerman said. “What people see on TV or if they see debates on CNN or FOX news are predominantly scripted. The questions have been provided ahead of time, the people have had staff writers write their answers to be memorized, and that’s not debate. What we do is so far removed from that, that I think [people’s] perception of what we do is totally different than what we actually do. There is no grand audience, we’re not on some beautiful stage debating. You’re in a classroom with three or four other people and a judge. It’s actually far different than what most people would expect.”

Blue Valley Southwest hosted the statewide  5A/6A debate tournament on Jan 27 and 28. Debate teams from across the state traveled to Southwest in pursuit of winning state. As this is the school’s first year hosting it, Zuckerman said that many requirements had to be met in order to be selected.

“The first thing is that your school has to be big enough so you have to have about 90 to 100 classrooms that you can use, and you have to have a supportive administration that wants to have debate in their building,” Zuckerman said. “Then, I think the second thing is it tends to go to schools that have a strong debate program because they know they’ll have the parent community support to make sure it happens. So, between those two things, the Blue Valley schools tend to host a lot because our schools are always really well supported.”

Ziegelman said he was looking forward to having state at his own school, and he believed they would benefit from it.

“It’s nice to finally have the home-field advantage for once after four years of going out to Derby High School or wherever else it is,” Ziegelman said. “So it’s nice to be in a familiar setting. I also think it looks really good on our school because only really good debate programs have the opportunity to host state. It’s nice to finally get recognition by letting us host state.”

In addition to being selected to host state, Zuckerman said the debate program has earned many other prestigious awards including winning state six times.

“I think that as a school there has been twice where we’ve been recognized as national debate school of excellence which means you’re one of the top 20 programs in the country,” Zuckerman said. “That’s pretty unique considering the whole district has accomplished that maybe one other time in the last decade. More locally, winning state is what we are measured by, so to me that means a lot more than kind of how we do nationally.”

In January, four debaters — senior Abby Fry, Ziegelman, junior Stephen Lowe and junior Danish Khan — qualified for the Tournament of Champions (TOC), considered to be the most prestigious and competitive high school tournament in the country. Senior Abby Fry is the first female to represent Kansas and the team of Lowe and Khan is the first junior-junior team to qualify in the state. Ziegelman said qualifying for the TOC has been a goal for him and Fry since their sophomore year.

“We sort of had this goal starting out our sophomore year of qualifying to the Tournament of Champions which is the most prestigious and elite national tournament,” Ziegelman said. “We met that goal this year which is a really big deal considering that Blue Valley Southwest is the first school since 2002 to send not only one, but two teams to the Tournament of Champions.”

Looking to continue a tradition of excellence, Roy said she plans to continue participating in debate next year. She said she enjoyed going to tournaments in her first semester and looked forward to state because of the togetherness she felt on the team.

“I’m excited about all the debaters coming together to do what they love,” Roy said. “It’s a really good thing to see because it’s what they are all passionate about. It’s inspiring to me because it makes me think that there are things that bring us together even when times are rough.”