What you should Expect at a Debate Tournament

The first thing you will notice about the bus leaving school is how comfortable it looks. There are seatbelts and even an overhead bag holder. You could call this the nice bus. But do not be fooled. The bus will have gained cushioned seats at the expense of space.

The half-hour before your first round will be your most productive time yet. Didn’t think you could read ten articles at once? You’d be surprised. It is Friday, and you have just missed your last 2 periods in order to be here. The sky outside is gray, and the tournament has yet to begin.

An hour flies by quick when you’re in round. You feverishly copy and paste as foreign words roll off your tongue. Your face is red as you accidentally find yourself defending socialism. As you speak, you look at your script and suddenly notice all your fallacies. Don’t forget to thank your opponents for reminding you that the author of your article is funded by the Saudi president and thus probably supports slavery.

Have no fear: your diet every tournament shall be pizza and instant noodles. Reality sinks in as you realize the homework you have not yet done. But to be honest, you will not do it.

You go home at midnight and return here before dawn. At 5 a.m. you will encounter your greatest enemy yet: the inability to wake up. At 6 a.m. you stand in the school’s lower parking lot waiting for the bus on which you will catch up on your 5 hours of sleep. This time it's the school bus, probably because we only have the budget to hire one nice bus each tournament. No position is comfortable, but from the exhaustion, you find yourself dozing off.

The day moves and stops. Debate rounds fly in seconds and the hours between feel like an eternity. You try and predict your preliminary records using power matching and leaked judging information. And that hope of advancing to the elimination bracket unites us all. Time slows as the moment your advancement is announced draws near. You incessantly refresh that website page, hoping to see your results just as much as you fear it. But as of tradition, it’s released will be delayed by at least 15 minutes.

Suddenly, you hear uproar from all around as those who have advanced cheer—but the internal silence is louder. You reason and convince yourself that your internet is slow, but still nothing comes up. And you will know you have been eliminated. Be accustomed to this feeling. The days of the novice league pass, and the harsh reality is this: how can you be the best debater out of a hundred teams trying just as hard, if not harder, than you? The room slowly empties to watch the quarterfinals as you ponder this question.

Yet you will do this every weekend, sacrificing 24 hours of your life to pursue your aspirations. If you learn from your mistakes and endure failure time and time again, maybe you can take a trip to the state or national tournament. Or you can do something less stressful, like DECA.