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No Debate: Championship Contenders
March isn’t just madness for the Gonzaga basketball teams and the fans who love them.
The Gonzaga debate team is vying for a national championship at the National Debate Tournament (NDT) kicking off in Washington, D.C., March 31.
The parallels go beyond striving for a title just after spring break. Like their basketball-playing fellow students, members of the debate team are dedicated to their craft in a way that a casual observer simply could never understand. They put in hours upon hours of practice outside of competition, their season stretches for the better part of a school year, and the debates themselves are fierce endurance contests, matching wits and wordplay with top-tier talents from across the country for hours on end.
“Competitive debate is incredibly rewarding, but can also be demanding,” notes Glen Frappier, a senior lecturer in communication studies now in his 24th year as GU’s director of debate. “During tournaments students routinely compete for 10-12 hours each day, going up against some of the most brilliant and talented undergraduates in the nation. The level of thinking and speaking required can be exhausting.”
The rewards, though, are worth every minute spent researching and preparing arguments for tournaments....
March isn’t just madness for the Gonzaga basketball teams and the fans who love them.
The Gonzaga debate team is vying for a national championship at the National Debate Tournament (NDT) kicking off in Washington, D.C., March 31.
The parallels go beyond striving for a title just after spring break. Like their basketball-playing fellow students, members of the debate team are dedicated to their craft in a way that a casual observer simply could never understand. They put in hours upon hours of practice outside of competition, their season stretches for the better part of a school year, and the debates themselves are fierce endurance contests, matching wits and wordplay with top-tier talents from across the country for hours on end.
“Competitive debate is incredibly rewarding, but can also be demanding,” notes Glen Frappier, a senior lecturer in communication studies now in his 24th year as GU’s director of debate. “During tournaments students routinely compete for 10-12 hours each day, going up against some of the most brilliant and talented undergraduates in the nation. The level of thinking and speaking required can be exhausting.”
The rewards, though, are worth every minute spent researching and preparing arguments for tournaments....
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