Mary Washington Starts Strong – (Georgia State, Kentucky and Richmond)

The Mary Washington debate team resumed its winning tradition with a great start to the 2007-2008 debate season. The topic of debate this year is whether the United States federal government should increase its constructive engagement with the Middle East by increasing either foreign assistance or by offering a security guarantee.

At the first tournament of the year, Mary Washington sent two teams to compete at the Georgia State University, which took place from September 22^nd to the 24^th. The two teams that competed were Matt Struth (Jr.) and Kevin Kallmyer (So.), and also Nick Ryan (Sr.) and myself, Sean Jansen (Sr.). Nick and I finished the tournament with a record of 4 wins and 4 losses while Matt and Kevin finished with the preliminary rounds with 5 wins and 3 losses. Due to their success, Matt and Kevin advanced to the elimination rounds at this prestigious tournament for the first time in Mary Washington history.

After opening the season with a quality showing, Matt and Kevin continued their success at the University of Kentucky where they again finished with a 5-3 record and only narrowly missing qualification for elimination rounds. Although, they did not qualify for the elim rounds, it has still been a great start for two of our most promising debaters.

The third tournament of the year took place last weekend at the University of Richmond. The Richmond debate tournament was the first tournament of the year for several of our debate teams including many novice members who joined the team in September. Mary Washington had a total of eight teams competing in the tournament in the Novice, Junior Varsity and Varsity divisions. In the novice division, Mary Washington sent nine debaters that made up five teams; our teams consisted of Rachael Adkisson & Ryan Lott, Brett Kube & Sean Slattery, Nathaniel Delano & Terrell Taylor, Hilary Balbeaith & Ben Saunders and finally Eric Halsey who competed with another novice from the Clarion University. All of the teams competed well and had a great showing for their first tournament. The team of Nathaniel Delano & Terrell Taylor reached the elimination rounds with a record of 4 wins and 3 losses which is very impressive for a team that was facing competition who had several tournaments experience.

In the other two divisions, Mary Washington sent three other teams to compete. In the Junior Varsity division, the team of Amanda Gardner and Farrah Tek had a record of four wins and four losses barely missing elimination rounds. In the Varsity division, the Eagles sent two teams. The first consisted of Jason Martin (Jr.) and his up and coming freshman partner Andrew Squires. Jason and Andrew had a record of 4 wins and 4 losses and also missed elimination rounds based on speaker points. The team of Nick Ryan and I, finished the prelim rounds with a record of 7 wins and 1 loss, defeating teams from Georgetown, Miami (Fla), and the Pittsburgh and achieving the top seed in the tournament. In the elimination rounds of the tournament, we defeated four consecutive teams, two from the University of Towson, one from George Mason and in the final round of the tournament, we defeat Harvard University. The win against Harvard University was a close round in which 2 judges voted for us and 1 judge voted for Harvard. This round avenged our only previous loss in the tournament. For Nick, he has won the tournament for the second consecutive year. Nick received an award for being the 2^nd best speaker at the tournament and I received one for being the 3^rd best speaker out of the other 68 varsity competitors. Overall, the tournament was a great success at all levels. We hope to keep the momentum going as we continue our season.

Farrah and Amanda prepare for Richmond in a practice debate

Jason Working Hard on a Saturday

Debate in the Summer

After the National Debate Tournament ended, the debate community and Mary Washington debate have a bit of a break from the research and intense travel schedule of the year. During the summer the new topic area and potential topics are decided.

The first ballot determined the area that the 2007-2008 topic would cover. The four potential choices were Weapons proliferation, Genetic Engineering, Democracy Promotion and the Middle East. Although all four are relevant and interesting areas, the winning topic was the Middle East.

After having determined the general area to discuss, the topic committee, which is headed by some of the leading debate coaches in country including Mary Washington's coach Tim O'Donnell, then decide which possible resolutions are to debated. The four possible resolutions focus on specific types of Constructive Engagement with countries in the Middle East. The winning topic will be announced at the end of July.

National Debate Tournament / End of the Year

The National Debate Tournament, which is one of the three national tournaments and also last tournament of the year, took place over the week of March 30th until April 2nd. The team arrived in Dallas two days prior to the start of the tournament in order to get a jump on preparation for the tournament. Participating in the tournament were the teams of Matt Struth and Kevin Kallmyer and also Nick Ryan and myself. Along with the teams participating, Jason Martin and Clint Woods accompanied the team to provide help researching and coaching during the tournament.

Although neither team managed to reach the elimination, it was a great accomplishment for the team to have qualified two teams to the National Tournament for two years in a row and to have also qualified teams for the fourth consecutive year. A detailed account of the tournament was written by Jason Martin and Clint Woods at the 2007 NDT blog (http://umwndt2007.blogspot.com/).

The National Debate tournament concluded the 2006-2007 debate season for Mary Washington and the rest of the debate squads around the country. The writers at Mary Washington's debate blog would like to thank several people for their contributions over the course of the year.

Scott Berry: Scott concluded his fourth year in debate at Mary Washington and graduated with a double major in Geography and Political Science. Scott was able to balance being on the debate team along with several other activities such as working political campaigns, being an officer in GIANT productions along with several other clubs and activities. Scott's leadership and work proved valuable to the debate team over his four years on the team but more importantly most people would classify Scott as a Dude.

Will Collins: William Forsythe Collins also concluded his fourth year in debate at Mary Washington, graduating with a degree in History. Mr. Collins demonstrated a great passion for the activity and was one of the hardest workers on the team. Will proved to be both an excellent partner and teammate over the course of debate career whose work was invaluable to the success of the team. We would all like to wish Will Collins the best of luck and hope to have Will remain a part of the team as a distinguished alumni.

Adrienne Brovero: Adrienne's dedication and work ethic helped bring about much of the team's success this year. Her efforts in her first year of coaching here went well beyond expectations and were one of the best parts of the 2006-2007 debate year.

Thanks to everyone and here are a few photos from the NDT taken from the Official 2007 NDT site.

The Whole Team

Kevin & Matt

Nick and I

Clint Woods


Jason Martin

Varsity Takes First in National Debate Rankings

The final debate rankings were published for the American Debate Association. The Varsity debate team ranked 1st in the entire country beating out teams such as Harvard, Georgia and the Naval Academy. The rankings are based upon the combined performance of the team over the course of the entire season for debate.

Matt Struth Sits Down

The novice team finished second in the country ranking just behind Liberty University.

Novices Win Rounds

Mary Washington Does Well at A.D.A. Nationals

From March 10^th to March 12^th, Mary Washington competed at the American Debate Association National Tournament which was hosted by Liberty University. The A.D.A. National Tournament is the last tournament of the year for many of the debaters. The team sent a total of five teams to compete in all three divisions.

In the Varsity division, the team of Scott Berry and Will Collins advanced to the elimination rounds where they would face the team of Wayne State BN. Will and Scott defeated the Wayne State team on a 3-0 decision and would advance to debate a Georgia team that is one of the best two teams in the country. Will and Scott would eventually drop a good debate on a 3-0 decision. The team ended a solid debate career with a quality showing at the national tournament. In addition to advancing the quarterfinals, Scott Berry took home 8^th speaker.

In the Junior Varsity division, the Dorrior Coleman and Jason Martin finished prelims with a 3-3 record. The team then picked it up in elimination rounds and ended up advancing to the Semifinals where they would lose to the eventual champions Wake Forest University.

The novice division saw the team of Cassie Carlton and Amanda Gardner advance to the finals of the tournament finishing second. Amanda and Cassie finished the preliminary rounds with a record of 5-1 and both received speaker awards.

Amanda and Cassie's Speaker Awards

Scott Also Pulls in a Speaker Award