Speech and debate takes on changes, challenges

The speech and debate team placed fifth in the league last year, and this year, they are looking to become even stronger with the addition of new captains, members and an event.

Veterans on the team have seen significant changes in the speech and debate team from last year. Participates hope that these changes, although somewhat difficult to accomplish, will make the speech and debate team to be feared by competitors. Captains have been enforcing stronger leadership in the various teams and taking a more hands-on approach than former years.

“The captains, [juniors Venkata Munukutla and Sujay Khandekar], are more serious and they give us more homework and deadlines for our speeches,” sophomore Florence Wang said.

Additionally, the team has gained even more variety with the addition of a Lincoln Douglas (LD) debate team. Lincoln Douglass is a type of one-on-one debate where the most of the topics relate to morals and justice. There has not been a Lincoln-Douglas team at Saratoga in several years, according to the LD coach, Steve Clemmons, but it was reestablished this year to give the speech and debate team a more competitive edge.

LD has meetings every Wednesday from 6:15 to 8:15 p.m. and is currently being coached by Clemmons, who also trains the public forum team. This will be his second year coaching the speech and debate team.

“It was an idea that grew organically from the students,” Clemmons said on the return of LD.
Clemmons looks forward to coaching the renewed LD team. He said LD is unique since it is an individual debate event, unlike public forum or policy debate, which require two students to be on one team.

“It leads to greater student involvement. Compared to other debates which require two people, LD needs only one person, so you can depend on yourself,” Clemmons said.

As of the first meeting, there are 10 members of the LD team. The majority are freshmen.

“I wasn’t sure which event I wanted to do, so I went to LD and it turned out that it was an awesome event and there was an awesome [adviser],” freshman Derek Hsiao said.

Most of these freshmen have attended debate camps or institute and as a result, Clemmons believes that the team has a good chance of winning some tournaments this year.

Currently, only one tournament date for the speech and debate team has been confirmed. Public forum debaters will enter a tournament at Henry M. Gunn High School on Oct. 15.