Coping With "Close but ..."

A mantra I stress to my debate students constantly is that what they do should be fun. "It's not about the trophies," I claim. "Trophies aren't my priority. Debate is an elective, it's an after-school extracurricular. If you're not having fun, why are you doing it?"

I try very hard to live my life following this viewpoint. I know debate coaches who live vicariously through their students' successes, and believe - whether consciously or not - that the number of first-place finishes by their students defines who they are in their school, their debate community, and the debate world at large. I have no intention of being one of these types of individuals.

Now, don't get me wrong, watching students take home a trophy or two (or more) is pretty darn cool. I understand completely what these awards symbolize, and it's certainly nice, from a mentoring and administrative position, to see the fruits of their labors and my guidance result in these positive accolades. It's just that, in the grand scheme of things, the winning of trophies was never why I was hired, and is not a priority in my life. I don't care about wins and losses. I do, however, care about winning and losing fairly. And sometimes, what I end up seeing leaves me scratching my head in confusion.

I being this up because for the past week, I have been in Birmingham, Alabama, at the 2009 National Forensic League national speech and debate championship tournament. This is my second trip to what is touted as the premier national championship tournament for high school debaters; one of my Public Forum Debate teams qualified for the NFL nationals in Wichita two years ago. This year, I had a senior - now a high school graduate - advance from our district qualifier in Congressional Debate, which is just what the name implies - a student-operated version of what you can watch on CSPAN.

Amanda DeStefano is the first student in my school's history to qualify for the NFL national congress, which is a remarkable feat, given the history my program has earned since it was founded in 1988. It's her third national championship tourney; the past two years, she qualified for the National Catholic Forensic League nationals as well. At both NCFL nationals, Amanda advanced to the "Super Congress" final round. Suffice to say, she's pretty darn good at what she does, and has earned the respect from many a peer the past four years.

Amanda had her sites set on advancing to the NFL's final round, and possibly even placing in the top nine. Unfortunately, the powers that be - three judges and a parliamentarian - felt otherwise, and her high school debate career ended in the semifinal round. it was a crushing blow to Amanda, who felt she was much better than many of her fellow semifinal round competitors.

Based on a separate semifinal rounds I had judged on Wednesday (judges can't evaluate competitors from their home region), along with my observations of the championship round (which both Amanda and I watched on Thursday), I have no doubt in my mind that she was more than accurate with her stance. Many - not all, but many - of the speakers I watched in that final round had me scratching my head. One senator quoted South Park's Eric Cartman ("Respect my authority!") in his introduction. Another quipped the much-overused "If the opposite of pro is con, then the opposite of progress is Congress" line. A third opened her speech with a joke about Paris Hilton, the Vice President and the agriculture community.

All of these, plus many more instances of less than professional commentary, had me shaking my head, rolling my eyes, and wondering what the judges and parliamentarian had witnessed in their prelim rounds ... and had me wondering, if this is what advanced from the previous session, just how bad had the non-advancing student legislators been? It also had me a bit depressed - not because Amanda didn't win the whole thing, but because I really wonder about what the judges were thinking, or at the very least what they use as their criteria when scoring speeches and ranking students.

I have no argument about who won the tournament, and won't point fingers at the students or coaches who placed highly in the final round. That would be unfair to both the competitors and their coaches, and this is not an attack on their advancement. But it sure would have been nice to have Amanda as part of that final round, to see if, had perhaps one scorer result been different, she would have been on stage at the awards ceremony tonight.

If it sounds like I am jealous ... well, maybe I am. A bit. As much as I don't want the trophies to define me, there's a small part of me that wouldn't mind such recognition. Is this wrong? No. I'm wise enough to be able to look at the big picture and realize what I am providing to my students - the opportunity to compete, to travel, to grow emotionally and mentally, to be better prepared for college and the "real world" than I ever was when I was in their proverbial shoes - far outweighs receiving a trophy, a plaque, a gavel.

I don't want to live vicariously through my students. At times, though, making the separation can be difficult.