Debate to State Feature

Debate team story
Shannon

After a successful year, the 2008/2009 East debate team successfully honored a prestigious reputation. For several years the debate team has been dominating tournaments and rankings, all with a wide variety of participating grade levels from strong freshman to experienced seniors.
Last year the debate team was ranked 23 out of 3000 participating schools nationwide by the National Forensics League, which also means that East was one of the nation’s top 100 schools in speech and debate activities. With these accomplishments published in the Rostrum, the national magazine of high school speech, in September, last years debate team continued to uphold the East name. Teacher and debate, forensics and mock trial coach, Trey Witt, knows that the team’s commitment and extra efforts has lead to success.
“This recognition is important because it signifies how are entire NFL program welcomes a large number of students with a variety of talents.” Mr. Witt said.”The team worked very hard last year and I see that it paid off based on the improvments I have seen in the advanced debaters this year.”
With a big squad it’s easier to produce more evidence and have practice debates. This years debate team has been making efforts to be even more successful than last year, by coming in after school and putting in extra time. So far, it has been paying off as East won the Leading Chapter Award which schools are only eligible receive every five years, and the last time it was received was in 2004. Since then East has continued to be ranked first in the East Kansas district out of 10-15 participating schools.
Senior Tara Raghuveer, the debate and forensics president, has been a key factor to East’s success this year, which includes her and her partner Emily Halter, placing first in the varsity division of the Hutchinson High tournament and qualifying for the Debate Coach’s Invitational.
“I think this year were stronger than we were last year because we have a lot of really good leadership and our seniors have been doing really well at tournaments this year,” Raghuveer said.”In year’s past we have had a really really successful squad but I think specifically this year it’s been really strong so far.”
This season East also has the highest running count of DCI (Debate Coaches Invitational) bids then any other team in Kansas. One of those students includes successful sophomore Chris Carey who placed fourth, with his partner Michael Hill, at the Hutchinson High tournament and earned a DCI bid.
“It’s pretty cool, I think it shows how hard we worked as a team and that we are good at it,” Carey said.
This year the debate team has a strong line of experienced and hardworking seniors who are willing to put in the time and efforts necessary to win state, and hopefully advance to nationals.
“I hope that we have at least two teams in elimination rounds at state, and I really think we have a shot at winning the state championship this year,” Raghuveer said.
Working towards the goal the 09/10 season has been a success as East won the sweepstakes, the team with the most accumulative wins, at Olathe South with two debaters placing first in the open division with a spotless 8-0 record. Also winning the sweepstakes at Blue Valley North, Witchita East, Shawnee Mission North, and tying for sweepstakes at the Washburn Rural Debate Tournament.
“We stay after school and work really hard preparing for tournaments,” Carey said. “I think it’s the way we argue things like we make smart arguments.”
East placed second in the sweepstakes at Lansing, Blue Valley West, and Shawnee Mission Northwest. Two debaters took fourth out of a hundred teams in the Johnson County Community College national circuit tournamen. Two debaters placed first in the varsity division at the Hutchinson High Tournament.
“The squad has won a number of sweepstakes awards, and we have had many individual teams who have won tournaments this year as well,” Mr. Witt said.
In class the seniors have been leading the younger kids in “lab” groups, and give out assignments every few weeks for evidence that needs to be produced. As a tournament comes near, seniors and teams organize updates for the weekend and assign people to them, they also have practice rounds with the younger kids occasionally to give them a little bit of a challenge. The seniors also try to include the novices, first year debaters, in debate activities so that they continue debating in years to come.
“I like that the class is pretty unstructured, lately we’ve had a lot of instructional activities presented by the older debaters for the benefit of the second and third years,” Raghuveer said. “I think that has been a great improvement this year.”
Aiming to take state the team has been constantly coming in after school to practice and research. Since last year’s debate team was ranked top 10th of 1 percent of all NFL chapters and qualified for the Elite Pentagon Society, this year’s team is ready to go farther then before to reach their goals.
“Confidence is really important in debate. You need to be able to think on your feet and think critically,” Raghuveer said. “Retaining composure is pretty vital in tough rounds, it’s always important to debate like you’re winning, even if you aren’t.”