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Berkeley's top-ranked debaters By Ayala Ochert In many ways, Ivo Keller and Matt Macdonald are typical student roommates—quibbling over which toppings to have on their pizza, which movie to watch on TV, whose turn it is to wash the dishes. The only difference in their case, says Keller, is that these discussions can go on for hours. They may be the best of friends, but the only thing these two can agree on is that they love to argue. As members of Cal’s national debate team, they figure it’s all good practice. With just four pairs of debaters, it’s a small team, but one that has been making big waves in the world of college debating. Three years ago, Berkeley was flailing at the bottom of the debate leagues. The downtrodden contestants could barely drag themselves to tournaments; once there they would be knocked out in the early rounds. “The program was basically dead about five years ago,” acknowledges sophomore debater Tejinder Singh. Since then, Cal debate has engineered the most remarkable turnaround to become the number one team in the country and is the strong favorite to win the National Debate Tournament—debate’s equivalent of the NCAA championship. Now a part of Cal Forensics, a student-run society, the debate team began life as the Durant Rhetorical Society in 1862, six years before the founding of the University itself. During its long history, it enjoyed periods of success and popularity, but in the early 1980s the campus withdrew its support, effectively cutting the lifeline to the venerable society. For nearly twenty years, Berkeley debate survived on the meager subsistence generated by the annual Cal Invitational Tournament for high-school debaters. Then, about four years ago, a small group of ex-debaters took it upon themselves to revive the ailing team. They remembered what debate had given them, and did not want that lost to future generations of Berkeley students. Alumni donations were just enough to enable the team to hire a coach—former University of Kentucky debate coach Dave Arnett, who joined Berkeley in 1998.  “The difference between the world of Berkeley debate before Dave and the world after is like night and day,” says Macdonald, now in his senior year, who remembers the bad old days. On arrival, Arnett put the team’s affairs in order, and right away began sending more debaters to more tournaments. But he knew his biggest challenge was to get inside the minds of his young charges, and convince them that they really could win. “When I got here there was a small school–big school complex,” recalls Arnett. Berkeley’s students felt intimidated by the large, well-funded teams of colleges such as Northwestern and Emory, which have dominated college debate for many years. “There was a sense that, ‘Yes, we’re fairly talented, but how can we ever compete against these mega-machines?’” says Arnett. With his encouragement, and a few wins under its belt, the team began to approach debates with more confidence. “They didn’t think it was hopeless any more, so they did go to the library and do their assignments,” says Arnett. Their efforts quickly paid off. In a huge upset, Berkeley knocked out fifth-seed Michigan at the 1999 Wake Forest Tournament, one of the largest and most prestigious events on the debate circuit. They followed up that victory later the same year by becoming the first Berkeley team ever to reach the elimination rounds of the National Debate Tournament. As with the NCAA, only the top teams in the country are invited to the NDT. All teams compete in the preliminary rounds, after which the top 32 teams go on to battle it out in the elimination rounds leading up to the finals. “I love competing against all those established programs and just winning, winning, winning!” says Arnett. As Cal’s success spiraled, the debate community began to sit up and take notice. Dan Shalmon, the top debater from the best high school debating program, was intrigued by the reports. He had been offered a scholarship to Northwestern from his native Chicago, but he was excited by the idea of coming to Berkeley and joining its burgeoning team. “I thought it would make a good change of pace to start out as the underdog, and really see if I could do it without the big name behind me,” says Shalmon. Northwestern’s loss has been Berkeley’s gain. Shalmon, in only his freshman year, is a bright spark—intelligent, eloquent, a passionate speaker, an asset to any debate team. The mere mention of his name in Cal debate circles elicits great sighs of awe and pride. “It’s amazing to have an 18-year-old make you feel like you’re a few steps behind,” Arnett muses. “He was born and raised to debate.” So it was logical to match Shalmon up with Cal’s leading debater, senior Randy Luskey. “[When I arrived] Randy was just hanging out—kind of like a star basketball player shooting hoops in the back yard,” says Arnett. This mix of new and existing talent is proving a potent brew. Shalmon and Luskey—Cal debate’s very own Dream Team—have built up an extraordinary record in their short time together. In 2000, the pair reached the semi-finals at Harvard, the finals at Kentucky, and then staged a magnificent coup by winning at Wake Forest this past November. “This latest win marks them as the consensus number one team in the country. The pair has the equivalent of the number one rank in an AP poll for basketball or football,” says Sasha Peterson ’97, director of development for the Cal Forensics alumni group. If they continue this stellar performance into 2001, they will be on track to win the prestigious Copeland Award, presented before the NDT to the team that has shown the most overall success during the year. And, of course, they also have their sights firmly set on the nationals—the competition that really counts—in March. Of course, debate isn’t just about winning. Debaters say they relish it as a rich educational experience. “It’s addictive—it’s a real adrenaline rush, pushing yourself to your intellectual limits for hours on end,” says Shalmon. Those who take part maintain that it offers something more than traditional academic work. “When you turn in a really good paper, you don’t get a standing ovation. And when you get an A-plus, your buddy doesn’t give you a high five!” explains Arnett. Team members also enjoy the camaraderie of the close-knit debate community. “No matter how competitive it gets, no matter how heated the argument, everybody’s still friends at the end of the day,” claims Macdonald, who says that teams from different colleges will even help each other with arguments. “It’s not just this competitive activity you do, it’s also this thing that you do with your friends,” he adds. The rewards of participation may be great, but they come at a price— debaters spend as many as 30 hours each week researching and preparing for tournaments, which come around every three or four weeks. Tournaments themselves are grueling affairs—late-night preparation, early-morning flights, and then 12 debates in three days, each lasting a couple of hours. So it’s inevitable that schoolwork is sometimes compromised, but debaters insist that their education never is. Quite the reverse, in fact. “Political science classes are easy for me and for most people on the debate team. We’ve already learned most of that stuff either through debating or researching it personally,” says Keller. Debate also hones research skills and analytical thought processes crucial to writing good papers. Debate comes in many forms. There is “parliamentary debate,” a style modeled on the arguments heard in the British House of Commons. A contest of wit and rhetorical skill, it is considered highly entertaining for a public audience. The Cal–Stanford Great Debate, a recently restored tradition, is part parliamentary debate, part “policy debate”—a much more rigorous, though admittedly less diverting, form on which Cal focuses most of its energy. In policy debate, teams must argue for and against a single broad resolution announced at the start of each year. This year’s resolution is “that the United States Federal government should substantially increase its development assistance, including increasing government to government assistance, within the Greater Horn of Africa.” Berkeley has chosen to argue that this should come in the form of increased reproductive health assistance. But they must also be ready knock down any proposal dreamed up by other teams, and that requires a vast amount of ongoing research, in politics, economics, sociology, philosophy, current events. Debaters have to stay on top of all matters relating to public policy, because at the top levels of debate there is no telling which arguments might come up. Every piece of ammunition counts in this intellectual arms race. “In any given week, someone on a team will have to read every single newspaper that’s been published that week across the country. It’s a mind-boggling amount of paper, four or five hundred pages,” says Shalmon. “Without the competitive incentive of debate, I don’t think I would do that,” he adds frankly. At times, the arguments strike a personal chord. When his teammates won the semi-final debate at Kentucky, Singh felt especially moved, because the argument against their opponents’ use of labels such as “terrorist” really resonated. “One of the reasons my family emigrated from India [in 1982] was that the government used this rhetoric of ‘terrorist’ to describe all people of my religion,” says Singh. “When the Indian government started to portray all Sikhs as terrorists, certain groups of Sikhs became extremely militant, because they perceived that the government was out to get them. So [that label] became a self-fulfilling prophecy.” Ironically, Singh still finds himself subject to just this sort of labeling when he debates. “I’m a six-foot-tall guy with a beard, and a turban on my head. So about 70 percent of the time, [when traveling to tournaments], I’ll wind up with some sort of security hassle on my hands.” On a more practical level, the act of standing up and speaking in front of a large group of people can be very good career training, especially for students who plan to become lawyers. “It teaches you to analyze and to speak—which as a lawyer are the two main things you do,” says Tom Shepherd ’55, a former debater. Most debaters choose to follow a career in the law, while the rest are evenly divided between politics and international relations. Numerous senators and Supreme Court judges count themselves as former debaters, and many cite their involvement in debate as the single most important experience that got them there. Six of the twentieth century’s U.S. presidents were former debaters, including John F. Kennedy, who said of the activity: “The give and take of debating, the testing of ideas, is essential to democracy. I wish we had a good deal more debating in our institutions than we do now.” While college debate is a gateway to positions of leadership, it still remains open to a select few. Most college debaters were former high school debaters, and many of those attended private schools that emphasize debating skills. And it is still hard to find women debaters, despite earnest attempts to boost their participation. “There’s definitely a ‘boys’ club’ issue,” admits Arnett, “but it’s something the community is actively working on.” Those women who do take up the challenge, such as NBC’s Jane Pauley, recommend it as highly as do their male colleagues. “One of the most important decisions in my life was when the student body of Warren Central High School in Indianapolis decided that I should not be a varsity cheerleader. [So instead] I spent most Saturdays on the road with the largest National Forensic League chapter in the country. While the fifteen-year-old girl inside of me still mourns the lost letter sweater, the adult Jane is grateful to forensics for something much more important—a career.” Next year, Arnett hopes to recruit several women to his currently all-male national team, and he hopes to open up debate to students who have not previously participated. For the moment, he must continue to rely solely on the generosity of alumni, but he hopes that the team’s success will encourage the University to reinstate its support. According to Shepherd, that’s just good sense. “[A successful debate team] is a good representative of the school. It’s like winning the Big Game. I like to see the University win, whether it’s at football, basketball—or debate.” Back to Top |
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