Jun 12, 2023 At 10:50 AM EDT
The National Speech & Debate Association (NSDA) tournament kicks off Monday in Phoenix—the capstone to the 2022-2023 high school speech and debate competition season.
The NSDA tournament, known simply as "nationals," brings together over 6,000 students from 2,000 schools across the country to compete for 42 championship titles, including top team and individual speaker awards.
Students will participate in speech and debate, including public policy, public forum, World's School, Lincoln-Douglas, congressional and a format called Big Questions, which is designed for students to engage with broad philosophical queries regarding this year's topic, "Resolved: Humans are primarily driven by self-interest."
With 6,187 participants, this is the biggest tournament to date, according to NSDA's Director of Marketing and Advocacy, Angela McMillan. This is due, in part, to the NSDA's efforts to make the national tournament more accessible.
"We are always looking for ways to increase access to the tournament so it's affordable and equitable in that capacity," McMillan told Newsweek. "Some districts are really tough and strong so it's harder to qualify or break out of your district."
The NSDA recently launched a free, online last-chance qualifier at the district level to increase the number of students who have an opportunity to compete at nationals. With just this program alone, McMillan said that a couple of hundred more students qualified for the tournament this year.
The winners of Dallas' city championships have direct admission to nationals. Two of the teams are part of the Dallas Urban Debate Association (DUDA), a member of the National Association for Urban Debate Leagues (NAUDL).
Irma Rangel Young Women's Leadership School and JBS Law Magnet High School are each sending a World's School team to the NSDA tournament. Rangel and JBS qualified for nationals by winning the Dallas City Championships in the fall and spring semester, respectively.
The participants all joined debate for different reasons—their aspirations of being a judge, wanting to join the same activity as their friends or a scheduling mixup they never bothered to rectify.
Within NAUDL, the Texas urban debate leagues in Houston and Dallas have been pioneers of World's School—a form of debate that is similar to parliamentary that combines prepared and impromptu topics. Two teams of three speakers interact with each other during arguments on motions with a more conversational speaking style that an average non-debater could follow.
The JBS team comprises of three soon-to-be seniors and one rising junior. While they have previously competed in policy debate, this year was the first time that all four boys participated in World's School debate. They said competing in a new format at nationals is a bit intimidating, but they're eager to learn and grow as World's School debaters.
"Our team is not very experienced [in World's School], we just started," rising senior Hank Suprun said. "We're interested to see the skill ceiling at nationals and how they contrast with the tournaments we've done in Dallas. We're really interested to see how good some of these teams are and how we can improve."
The Rangel girls are seasoned World's School debaters, and one of their team member, Katelyn Moss, is no stranger to the national circuit. The rising senior competed at nationals last year and has been able to share some of her experience with her teammates.
She said going to nationals last year was an "eye-opening experience," as she met debaters from all 50 states, as well as teams from Canada and Taiwan.
"It was kind of a culture shock because there is so much diversity, there were so many kids with different skill sets and each round I competed in, I took something home with me that I shared with my teammates," Moss said.
She added that she made a lot of new friends with "likeminded" people who were also passionate about speech and debate.
One thing Moss taught her teammates is that nationals is a marathon, not a sprint. The NSDA tournament runs for a full week, as opposed to the two-day weekend tournaments many debaters are used to.
The Dallas debaters, especially those new to Nationals, will have to push past the fatigue from weeks of preparation to argue both sides of a range of political issues. But their preparation can only go so far, as they are gearing up to jump headfirst into the unknown of a competition on a scope and scale they've never seen before.
Mason Klein, a rising junior at JBS, said the competition will be "extremely challenging" but will be a "wonderful learning opportunity."
All of the students gave credit to their coaches, DUDA Executive Director Cindi Timmons and NAUDL's 2023 Coach of the Year, Kris Wright, for their dedication and support.
JBS rising senior Hope Habia said the coaching staff helped the teams believe they are capable and "worthy" of competing at nationals.
"Them taking time out of their busy schedules to prepare the materials and spend time with us is just a testament to how much they believe in us," he said.
Outside of the NAUDL tournament community, both teams have competed at the broader city and state levels where they have faced teams from wealthier, better resourced school districts.
While these students are smart, confident and capable of holding their own at nationals, Moss said she can't help but feel like "little bitty goldfish in the ocean of sharks and dolphins and orcas."
"You can see the class disparity," Moss said. "It can get scary sometimes but we have proved that we can still stand our ground. We're all here for one purpose, and that is debate. We never let class disparity hold us back."
Habia said he struggles with imposter syndrome but that his team has turned any insecurity or doubt into motivation. Richer schools, he said, have a full staff of high-quality coaches who do a lot of work for the students. But Habia said their circumstances force them to be more hands-on and engage deeper with the material and, therefore, better understand the topic. The teams will be able to rely on their more thorough preparation when they have to think on the fly in debate rounds.
"While we are at a bit of a disadvantage, it makes the sport of debate more fulfilling," he said.
The JBS Law Magnet High School team is comprised of Valen Garcia, Hope Habia, Mason Klein and Hank Suprun.
The Irma Rangel YWLS team includes Emayah Cox, Yajaira Flores, Katelyn Moss, Angelica Sanchez and Guadalupe Vasquez.
The high school NSDA tournament will run from Monday, June 12, to Friday, June 16. The middle school division, which will return to in-person debates for the first time since 2019, will run from Wednesday, June 14 to Friday, June 16.
