This past weekend, the Albany High Debate Club attended a tournament at Dougherty Valley High School. With five of the ten Albany teams in attendance winning awards for their performance in a tournament of approximately 400 debaters from around the Bay Area, the event was highly successful for the still young Debate Club.
English teacher and debate coach John Bailes said, “I am very pleased with every level of our speech and debate team so far. We keep growing in numbers and maturing as debaters. We had twelve debaters–four of which were in pairs for public forum. The other eight competed in the Lincoln-Douglas format. Three debaters–James Ren, Yang Ren, Lauren Li–had winning records (3-1) and two–Felix Yoon, Wendy Li–had undefeated records (4-0),” Bailes said.
The event ran from early Saturday morning until late evening. Junior Varsity debater Yang Ren said, “Well, there wasn’t as much time to polish up arguments and speeches with finals being the week before the debate. Reviewing material for the next day’s finals really takes that chunk out of your day.”
Difficulties aside, the Debate Club plans to compete in the Stanford Invitational Debate Tournament, held on the Stanford campus in mid-February. Many of the debaters see this past weekend as a warm up for the larger event – the Stanford Debate attracts several hundred more debaters from across the country.
“I can already tell that Stanford is going to be great,” said sophomore Regina Park. “We have some great debaters this year and just going with the team is always really fun!”
