by Blake Seitz

Sports Editor

Back in the narrow recesses of H hall is a classroom, set up traditionally except for several rows of metal shelves along the back wall. On these shelves are blue plastic crates roughly the size of moving boxes, each weighing around 40 pounds and each filled to the brim with ‘evidence.’

Flipping through the papers inside reveals the true nature of the seemingly-innocuous classroom: titles like ‘The merits of global biodiversity’ and ‘Sources of heart disease, hypertension in Indians’ are commonplace; a folder titled ‘Super Weapons’ is one of the more bizarre, filled with mysteriously-titled articles like ‘HAARP,’ and ‘Gold-gold collisions in particle acceleration a unique risk.’

As much as the above makes it seem like a Bond villain’s basement, the classroom houses a program that is a tad more mundane—debate.

Coppell’s debate squad is one of the best in the country. It competes in national competitions every year, and is consistently ranked as one of the state’s best. Even so, debate is relatively unknown at CHS.

“We’re an unknown sport,” debate coach Glenda Ferguson said, “but [debate] is one of the most educational things a kid can do. It’s also one of the most difficult electives.”

Ferguson’s claim is no exaggeration—debate and preparation for tournaments is a time-consuming and often tedious process.

“It’s tons of work,” Ferguson said. “The average debater does the same amount of research preparing for a debate as a PhD does for a thesis.”

Debate president and senior Joey Donaghy confirms the above statement.

“On average, I do two hours of research per night,” Donaghy said, “not including the all-nighters we spend researching and printing off breaking news right before tournaments.”

The result of the long hours? A squad that’s ready to argue about absolutely anything.

“The things I could tell you about solar panels,” Donaghy said with a grin. “It would bore you to death.”

 The research is done to prepare for debate tournaments, which are held on weekends. The tournament process is a series of matchups between pairs of debaters. Winners gain points that can earn them spots in state and national tournaments; losers go home.

It is this stark, winner-take-all setup that draws many students to debate.

“I like the research, but I like the competitive side to it too,” junior debater Priyanka Krishnamurthy said.

If it is the competition that draws students in, though, it is the social aspect that keeps them there.

“My closest friends are in debate,” Krishnamurthy said. “When we go out of town, we meet a lot of new people.”

Debate is no social event, however, and should not be confused as such. It is instead a commitment—a commitment to long hours and sometimes uncomfortable conditions.

Donaghy, perhaps, summarizes it best.

“While everyone else is at the football game, we’re the ones in a hot, smelly high school that has turned off its air-conditioning due to budget cuts, arguing the Law of the Sea treaty,” Donaghy said.