Jillian Holden

High schoolers from 60 schools, 12 states and four different time zones virtually gathered to compete in the University of Houston Eighth Annual Cougar Classic Speech & Debate Tournament Jan. 14–16 held virtually on the National Speech and Debate Association campus.

“It was a really fun weekend for my students,” Allie Chase, associate director of debate at Greenhill School said. “They had really good judging, which means they were always getting helpful feedback, and they always stayed upbeat because the criticism wasn’t harsh – it was good.” 

After a series of “prelims,” where every high school team participated in debate rounds, half of the pools of the various events were broken into elimination brackets, and debates proceeded until final champions were declared.

“Our tournament for the high schoolers is one of their national qualifying tournaments,” UH Event Captain Kiran Khan said. “We got about 400 teams, and people come from all over to compete. Everything has to be in order.”

Cougar Classic was divided into four formats of debate and 12 formats of speech, each with varying approaches and styles of constructive, rebuttal and questioning. With 550 total participants, a very in-person competition became virtual, allowing UH students to participate in behind-the-scenes activities while keeping high school debate active despite restrictions of the coronavirus.

“UH students did a lot,” Assistant Debate Coach Rob Glass said. “They actually organized all of the rooms and set it up so that the debates were all starting on time. They helped to make sure all the rounds were actually going, and on top of that, they judged.”

Judges were selected from a diverse pool, utilizing UH students, judges provided by participating schools and hired debate experts to not only make the final decision but give comments and insight to the debaters on how their argument could have improved, effectively presenting different perspectives and explaining ways to better shape and implement their debate strategies.

“I found that a lot of the students were pretty excited to get started and show everything they had learned and researched about debate,” UH Division Captain Humaira Khan said. “It was great because I didn’t go to debate in high school, and it was nice to see students come out of their perspective, especially in public forum.”

Students were active in pre-emptive planning for the tournament, setting up Zoom rooms and checking and rechecking rooms to make sure debaters and judges were where they needed to be before the tournament began. Despite the havoc of Wi-Fi issues, last minute arrivals and web mix-ups, they never missed a beat.

“They organized the running of the rooms and managed keeping the tournament running on time, and they did that with flying colors,” Glass said. “Usually, these tournaments run hours behind schedule, but in all but one division, we actually finished early.”

They even created a way to chat in between rounds, making a Slack room to relax, laugh and share tournament details. Tagged as “Debaters Off Topic,” it was the perfect replacement for debate competition downtime and added to the overall experience by giving students a way to mingle with friends and discuss the day’s events.  

“I wish it could have been in person, but I do not feel things were necessarily taken away with it being online because we all made sure to hang out with each other,” K. Khan said. “We had constant communication, and that kept it fun.”

The event also served as a front for debate recruitment, exposing high school talent to UH debate coaches while also advertising the attitude, skill and knowledge of the UH Speech & Debate program to encourage students interested in debate to attend UH.