In recent years, the Tennessee Speech and Debate Society has striven to extend its reputation as a competitive organization, both on campus at UT and in the national debating arena.
This semester, the organization’s team of about 20 undergraduate students has garnered a reputation for being one of the most successful teams in the state of Tennessee and is the only school in the country to host a completely student-led tournament without a coach.
Competing in the Tennessee Intercollegiate Forensics Association (TIFA) State tournament Feb. 18-19, the team was named state champions in debate sweepstakes. Without even competing in the second day of the competition, the team also managed a third-place finish in overall sweepstakes, which combines the scores from individual event sweepstakes and debate sweepstakes.
Nathan Johnston, president of Tennessee Speech and Debate Society, expressed his elation over his team’s performance.
“We had our strongest showing at state ever and the strongest showing of any team in the history of TIFA,” Johnston said. “This is especially impressive because one, we didn’t even compete in individual events and still placed, and two, usually Tennessee State, Belmont and Carson-Newman are the top 3 in overall. This is the first time that someone other than those three is in the top three in overall sweepstakes in at least the last three years, maybe longer. I could not be more proud of our team.”
Out of the eight pairs of teams that competed, five advanced to out rounds to compete for the state title, an impressive feat for any team that competes without a coach.
In the novice division, the team of Brandon Carpenter and Jacob Gibson were octafinalists, while Drew Street and Matt Smith advanced to the semifinal round and Jacob Clabo and his partner Nichole Indelicato garnered a second-place finish.
“We did great!” Smith, senior in marketing, said about his and Street’s performance. “If we had gone to the next round we would have split for first with Nichole and Jacob.”
Indelicato, freshman in engineering, was elated at having advanced so far in her first state tournament. “I was really excited,” Indelicato said. “Every single time they said our name I freaked out. I knew my team was really proud of me, and I was really excited about breaking that far for the first time.”
In the varsity division, the team of Jordan Smith and Spencer Hinton advanced to quarterfinals, while Johnston, who competed maverick, was a semifinalist and also named the state champion parliamentary debate speaker.
“I feel like state went really well,” Hinton, sophomore in history, said. He is also the public relations and fundraising chair for the organization.
“We had a lot of new teams competing in the novice division who did really great,” he said. “We broke three out of the five novice teams that we brought, and I felt like that was a huge success for the team because they were all new. And then that made me feel like I was accomplished because I knew that I had helped them learn and grow, and that was the first time we’ve ever done that well in a novice division of the state tournament in debate. So, I think it went awesome.”
The team is hoping that its success at the state tournament will propel it to be a tough contender at the national IPDA tournament in April in Huntsville, Texas.
To date, the team has only competed in NPDA parliamentary debate in which two two-person teams compete against one another, knowing the topic of the debate and the side they must defend 15 minutes prior to the start of the round.
At nationals, the organization will be competing in IPDA debate, a one-person versus one-person debate style in which both individuals pick the debate topic from five assigned and have 30 minutes to prepare for the side they are given to defend.
“I think we will do quite well in nationals,” Johnston said. “We train our debaters to be good speakers and to be rhetorically based to begin with. So I think we will transition to this style of debate quite well. I expect around 40 schools from around the nation to compete at nationals. We know the competition will be very good, but I know we are very good as well, so I think we will do great. I fully expect us to go there and impress a lot of people.”
Before even stepping foot into nationals, the Tennessee Speech and Debate Society has already garnered national recognition and was personally invited to compete in the national IPDA tournament, all expenses paid.
“They called us and were like, ‘Listen, you guys are good. Come to our tournament,’” Hinton said. “Usually with a national tournament there are a lot of qualification processes, but with this we just got all that waived for us, and they’re just going to bring us down, no competition fees or anything.”
Member-funded, student-led and competitive to the end, the Tennessee Speech and Debate Society is quickly building an impressive stat sheet.
“I want the campus to know as a whole that we are for real,” Hinton said. “In the past this organization has been big, died, kind of got started again, died again. Now it’s starting up again. I want people to know that we’re not a joke, and what we do is educational, and it’s helpful for people in the future in interviews and other communications, especially with speaking skills. This is a very good place to foster those skills.”
To gain more recognition and increase its legitimacy, the organization stresses the importance of growth, adding that it is always accepting new members. Meetings are every Tuesday at 6 p.m. in HSS.
“This team genuinely operates as a team,” Johnston said. “We prep together, we are uplifting to each other, humble, praiseworthy. Everyone is everything and more than I could possibly hope for. Though I may not officially be the coach, I would say that I am the proudest coach in the state of Tennessee. Individually everyone works really hard and seems to want to learn, and they enjoy the activity. Plus, the atmosphere of the team, at tournaments and not, is awesome. Other teams are too focused and stressed about winning. We seem to just want to argue with people, and we beat them.”
