The varsity debate team has achieved national and state wins in the past month with a position in the top eight at nationals and runners-up at the IHSA State Tournament.
The varsity team consists of juniors and seniors, and the senior partnerships of Chris Callahan and Brent Mitchell, and Chris Coleman and Harrison Kenner, have been the most successful. Callahan and Mitchell finished in the top eight at the IHSA state tournament in Springfield in March, and in the top 32 at the National Debate Coaches Association (NDCA) tournament in April. Coleman and Kenner were runners-up to North at state and in the top eight teams at the NDCA tournament.

Kenner attributed their wins to lots of preparation by all members of the debate team.

“It’s incredibly difficult to finish second place in state, and it’s a reflection of our hard work ethic and the work of our [coaches],” Kenner said. “Anything can happen at the state tournament, so you have to be ready for anything, and practicing in the morning, talking with our coaches and trying to be the best and most well-rounded team possible really led to [advancing] the two teams in state and [winning] second in the State Tournament.”

The practices that the team did increased during the debate ‘post-season’, which consists of the State Tournament and three national tournaments (NDCA, the Tournament of Champions in April, and the National Forensic League tournament in June). According to Kenner, after the team was unhappy with how the regular season ended in February, they started holding additional early morning practices.
“We were relatively disappointed with [our] performance, so we went home and tried to revive our [arguments] and we started getting up in the mornings to go practice with our coach, Jon Voss,” Kenner said. “So every day of the week, with some exceptions, we arrive at school at six in the morning to practice, […] which I think builds character. We call it ‘the breakfast club.’ Even though it’s difficult and [it] sometimes frustrates me, […] I think it got us prepared for [state] which was probably Chris and [my] best moments of the year.”

Assistant Coach Jon Voss said this early preparation will be advantageous to the seniors when they compete at their last two tournaments.

“[The seniors] have been coming in for practice at 6 in the morning, every morning, since like the first of March to get ready for [the last tournaments],” Voss said. “They really haven’t taken any days off, when they pitched the idea I expected them to do it for a week and then back off of it […] but they haven’t missed a single one and that I think, we’ll see how we do in Kentucky, that should give us a fair amount of momentum going in [because] they’ve been working for this as hard as possible.”

In addition to the varsity team doing well, the junior varsity (JV) debaters (sophomores) and novice debaters (freshmen) also placed high in their respective state tournament.

In JV, sophomores Michael Callahan and Brian Roche won the State Tournament and the JV Midwestern National tournament. Sophomores Doug Stryker and Scott Okuno finished as semifinalists at both tournaments as well. In Novice, freshmen Brendan Shuler and Josh Baime finished as semifinalists in the State Tournament.

Michael was satisfied with how his season ended and, like Kenner, attributed the win to Roche’s and his preparation.

“[We] won two tournaments, which was insanely fantastic, but we put a lot of work in beforehand,” Michael said.

According to Michael, it wasn’t how he performed at the tournament that made a difference; it was the way they practiced that made them successful.

“That’s how you win a tournament,” Michael said. “You have to do the work before the tournament. It’s not really as much how you perform in the [debates], it’s how you prepare for [them].”

Voss credits the entire team for the team’s overall success.

“The team at large is like 150 strong and even though the season for those students ended in January or February, it’s really impressive and means a lot to me [that] they’re still very much around and helping the team to ensure that we do well at these last season tournaments,” Voss said. “They understand that it’s a team effort.”