Debate Life -- as of Mizzou

Regular feature: My Debate life – this year, life on the road with 5-7 guys…

Intro… I coach debate as well as teach philosophy. This is kind of unusual, and I’ll explain how it happened later. Most of my friends know the story…

My current team from BNCC (big northern Community College) is about 8 people.. although we have some hovering around, so by the time we get to NPDA we could be more like 10. If you know me well enough to break the code, I’ve probably told you these things already. The team is a big part of my life, both on and off campus -- I spend my weekends with them, nights coaching them and I develop close relationships with them so that I become invested in their successes and feel bad about their failures.

I’ve been coaching for 9 years now, and every year is a new adventure…. This year will be the first I’ve blogged -- I hope I can keep it up --

The cast of characters --- my team ☺
Current partnerships are:
D1/D2, Rex & Herbie. The Russian, Herbie and someo thers...

“Voldemort” is a recurring theme. Debater from last year whose evil left some psychic injuries we are all recovering from.

Hubby is my husband and un-official assistant coach. Keeps me sane and helps in so many ways. He’s a former debater and quite brilliant. Sometimes people don’t get him, but in order to really get along on my team, you have to take us as a package.

AC-B is a former debater of mine and looks like she’ll be a great coach sooner or later. I really like her, she was my first debater at my last school and I miss her on trips this year, as she has other jobs and can’t travel. AC-B is currently dating LM, and it is getting pretty serious. This is really great from my perspective, as AC-B is a nice girl and LM is a nice boy – even if he refuses to sign a pre-nup ☺.

AC-M is a former debater from way back and a really good friend. He comes when he can, but his job keeps him on strange schedules…. He’s good at getting into long, involved, analysis of any given situation. I like that about him, as AC-H and AC-B don’t have that kind of patience for discussion. They just want to get stuff done…

Debater update – Tournament 2 (Mizziou)

Last week D1/D2 went 3/3 and got 4 NPTE points… good start guys. Not bad for D2’s first ever parli tournament. [As of parli rd 1 and LD rd 2 D1 is undefeated, D2 lost one LD round.. and D1/D2 won their first round.. with a case about killer dolphins..]

Debter X told me she’s just out of rehab, which explains a lot. She started out looking pretty good, flowing etc – but then another DX came to class, withdrawn etc – don’t know which one is on drugs and which one isn’t, but I’m not going to hang around to find out. She’s also not going on the road with us until I see more consistent behavior from her. I’d like to have her, but only the good DX I really, really, really hope she gets things together so she can participate. I don’t know how to help her.

CJ hasn’t come back since our “talk” about week 3 – as of now, if he doesn’t withdraw, he can’t pass.

Democrat Debater is coming around again – looks like he might re-join. I like him, even though he only eats about 5 foods, he’s a nice guy and it would be nice to know him with out Voldemort’s presence.


Moonshadow in e-mail, “I think I’ll go horseback riding instead of going to the debate tournament next weekend”

What the fuck –

Getting this from a student I’ve tried so hard to nurture, one who has made life kind of difficult for me in the last year – but who I really would like to have on the team – this pisses me off. Fine, go ride a horse. Forget about developing your intellect. You are cute and nice, go where people don’t challenge you and where people will let you be “Hot Chick”, while not respecting you for your mind. If that is how you want to live your life, go ahead and do so. You have my blessing, I suppose.

I’d love to ask Moon what could I have done, early in the relationship, to make this better?

Is there ANYTHING I could have done, or was Moon just that way from the start – playing at being a debater so that she could do fun stuff and hang around with boys? Maybe that is it afterall.

On a better note, D2 won his first LD round today (and, his first LD round ever--)… big fat YEA for him. I’m really happy and proud of him, he’s worked really hard to get going this year and he’s so low-key and laid back about things – I’m really glad I encouraged him to be on the team.

I know D2 could have done well within any activity, but I think he does especially well with debate. It challenges him in a way his classes and other things at BNCC could never do. He isn’t afraid that we are always competing against bigger, better funded schools.

And, the cool thing about D2 is that he is still, technically, in high school.

Talk about potential – right there. MD, smart, young, cool and ready to go… the question is where will you go?

D1 – kind of worried about him lately.,. not so sure things are good at home, although nothing concrete to back this up. Maybe I’ll see if he wants to house-sit while we are in Chicago in a couple of weeks. Give him some space to relax, although I’m not sure he has transportation to get back and forth from West St. Paul.

D1 has made so many incredible improvements in his debate performances lately. He’s been working hard on debate, although AC-H doesn’t seem to like the fact that he’s re-cutting camp evidence for our use. The thing is that D1 seems to see that the camp evidence is for policy, not LD…. And as such is useful.

Russian: mom says he can’t travel – Russian grandma is in town until November. I can see potential there, but I wonder if his personality will hold him back, or help him.

WK – there’s a case – tons of potential, lots of anger, I hope we can channel that into something good.

Herbie great kid – really nice and not annoying yet, even after a bad tournament for him and Rex. I want these two to do well together.

Rex, tossing the ball and trying to win rounds. Great attitude, and learning about debate the hard way – by loosing. I think D2 has won more rounds in the past two tournaments than Rex has won total.

During round 3 parli – D1/D2 are 2-0, hitting the top seed. D1 is 3-0 in LD. With a cold… ya gotta love it.

LD outrage – the pompous ass on the LD circuit (probably the dumbest LD coach out there – seems to hate us. He’ll vote for arguments on the other side in one round, but not buy them from us. WTF – what did we EVER do to you?? Besides have the nerve to start a parli national championship with some legitimacy. Oh boy, there’s an offense,. I suspect this ass of dropping D1 because he’s #1 and ASS thinks D1 doesn’t deserve it.

Mizziou is a great campus – a big school I could actually see us liking. I’m not so sure about Columbia, MO – that remains to be seen – but, if Hubby got a job here, I’m not sure I’d mind a lot.

Back to work – a round off is a gift from the debate gods to the philosophy gods – and I have to use it well.