Armed with only their argumentative fervor, two Jesuit debaters bested team after team at the competition in Houston. The team of juniors comprised of Beomhak Lee and Alandro Valdez was able to snag ninth place out of fifty in an event which featured the best teams in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and Austin.
Preparing for any competition requires dedication, focus, and collaboration with your team and debate is no different. The first step for the team of Beomhak and Alandro was to compile information on the opposing teams and consult the “wiki”, a site where they could find the opposing teams’ strategies and begin to form their argument. Alandro stresses the importance of “[dividing] up work according to necessity and urgency” at this stage. From this point Lee says they “strategize with [their] coaches which arguments [they] [will] prioritize,” based on what they believe the other team is most likely to employ. Besides readying their arguments, the debaters also prepare mentally for the competition. Beomhak says it was important for them to “situate [themselves] in [their] minds” that “[they] were facing one of the best teams both locally and nationally.”
During the competition, the team must depend on each other without the help of their other teammates or coaches. Lee says “the single most important strategy is communication with your partner.” During this particular meet, the duo “employed a variety of strategies that are tailored specifically to many different arguments” says Valdez, and pinpointed the use of “Lose-to-Win”, where they argued not to bolster their case, but poke holes in the arguments of their competitors. In addition, they used a strategy called, “Topicality and Framework”, which Alandro says focuses on, “[striking down [the opposing team] for not following the ‘rules of the game.” But the key to being a successful debater says Lee is “[taking] a step back and [looking] at what specifically [the other team is] critiquing and [form] answers” to those questions.
Following their 9th place finish, the team was happy with how far they’d come, among some of the best debaters in the country, but felt they could’ve performed better. Beomhak says “It was sort of a great experience” and especially so because the Houston meet saw many teams who would also be present at the TFA State Tournament in March. Despite, “[operating] through the mantra that [they] go to tournaments to win” comments Alandro, he “was satisfied with [their] placement” especially considering the duo’s relative new arrival to the national stage. He adds that working on their “comparative voice” would definitely be a focus between meets. The two both saw room for improvement but felt the meet was a good stepping stone for competition in the future.
Their next tournament is at Emory University, this coming Friday to next Monday, where around 120 nationally recognized teams across the country will compete alongside them. They are hopeful they can achieve another success on the national level.
