The four debaters and their judge are eerily silent. At the high-pitched bleep of a small, digital timer, the debater kicks off his eight-minute speech defending the merits of a federally-guaranteed, universal basic income (UBI). For the next one and a half hours, both he and his partner will clash extensively with the opposing side on the benefits and pitfalls of their proposal to guarantee a basic income.
This was a routine scene at the Coppell Classic debate tournament held on October 6-7. Both varsity and novice teams participated in the tournament, which took place at Coppell High School. For the twelve novice debaters, it was their first ever competitive policy debate tournament.
And opportunely, it was an unambiguous success for the novices. All six teams won debates and gained invaluable experiences.
Four teams advanced to the eliminations. Jesuit then “closed out”, with the teams of Sahith Chintapalli ’27 and Isaac Ma ’27 and Akshaj Nandigam ’27 and Dylan Joseph ’27 were co-champions. Carter Weiss and Hassan Gill took 3rd place. Jonathan Shu and Everett Bier took 5th place honors. Sahith, Isaac, Akshaj, and Dylan, along with Daniel Shao ’27, Carter Weiss ’25, and Jonathan Shu ’27 also were ranked among the top twenty novice speakers at the tournament as well.
Novices at Coppell
Despite being proud of their own work, the debaters also attribute their accomplishments to the help of their fellow brothers. For example, before elimination rounds, the novices conferred with each other on how to debate another school’s team which a Jesuit team had faced. And of course, not to mention the amount of collective preparation and practice before the tournament.
“We all learned a lot from the tournament, which I’d say was the ultimate goal,” Sahith stated.
The debaters’ motivations for joining debate were varied. However, two factors widely cited was past experience in other speech and debate formats, and sheer curiosity. “I did a little bit of debate in middle school, so when I learned that Jesuit had a debate team, I was like cool, I’ll join,” said Isaac.
Jesuit debaters take lessons home from every tournament, and this was especially true for the novices at Coppell. “I think the remarks from my judges will help me further my skills,” Akshaj insightfully observed, “I have learned a lot more about the economy and the state of prevalent issues in our society.”
Learning about the Topic
The 2023-2024 high school policy debate topic concerns the effects of economic inequality, and the use of fiscal redistribution by the federal government to resolve it. The official resolution reads: “The United States federal government should substantially increase fiscal redistribution in the United States by adopting a federal jobs guarantee, expanding Social Security, and/or providing a basic income.”
The debaters certainly affirmed the topic’s importance. As Sahth remarked, “I found this year’s topic to be very interesting, and I’m definitely learning a lot about it. I’ve honestly become more aware of current disparities that take place within our world, such as those that are economic, racial, or related to gender. Part of what makes this topic even more important is that there might be tools to solve these problems, such as changes in policy.” Many of the debaters also felt that they are now more interested in global issues and events, particularly in how they relate to their location in society.
The novices had not lost the significance of high school debate as a forum to learn about pressing societal issues either. “The insights of young people should be noted down, since, eventually, they will run [the government],” Dylan commented.
On the whole, the novice debaters were pleased with having a good start to their season, and grateful for the help their coaches and fellow Jesuit brothers provided to them.
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