Freshmen Skills: Freshmen Debaters Advance to Open Division

It’s the week before another debate competition where freshmen Sam Huntley and Tong Tong Yi will be competing in the open division, debating against all ages of experienced high school debaters around the district.  

The summer after graduating eighth grade, Huntley and Yi joined East’s debate program wanting to take a chance and join an elective that intrigued them. After attending the four-day introduction camp over the summer, they signed up to be partners for the semester.   

In their earlier competitions, Huntley and Yi competed in the novice level where all beginning debaters, regardless of age, are required to start. Their 32 wins before state made debate teacher Trey Witt move the duo up to the junior varsity level, and finally to the open level, which is available to any grade level but is primarily composed of second and third-year debaters. 

While class time wasn’t typically used as a time to prepare for specific competitions, but to practice their speaking in front of `peers, Huntley and Yi weren’t concerned about how they would do. They knew they had enough confidence, speech and debating skills to beat out their competitors.

“I would say we work really well together because of our similar qualities,” Huntley said. “Anywhere one of us isn’t as strong, the other happens to be great at. So we balance each other out.”

While in policy debate the topic is the same the whole year, this year’s being immigration, that didn’t stop debaters like Huntley and Yi from spending hours after school asking varsity debaters questions and preparing for the competition by working on their speeches.

During competition, Huntley and Yi participate in both affirmative and negative debate. Affirmative involves arguing the pros of a topic and negative arguing the cons.

This past semester Huntley and Yi competed in nine full tournaments and one round of an additional tournament. They concluded their season with a winning record of 41-13.

Huntley and Yi foresee competing in the Varsity level next year, where they will be required to attend a five-week long debate camp over the summer to prepare.

But even with their success and love of the competition in debate, both Huntley and Yi are not involved in any sort of debate courses this semester.

“We both opted out of doing forensics for second semester because we wanted to explore other electives and we didn’t really have space for it in our schedules,” Yi said.

Both Huntley and Yi plan on coming back sophomore year and continuing debate until their senior year.