The Washington Urban Debate League is an educationally focused non-profit, with new and exciting research showing the impact of our work. This research shows that participation is the key ingredient to learning, not wins and losses. 

Sometimes, however, we like to celebrate the competitive successes of debate. Over the long weekend, we hosted the 4th annual (2nd in person) Urban Debate Dragon Invitational. This is a qualifier to the Tournament of Champions, the most prestigious national end of year competition. 

The qualifiers this year are teams from Sidwell Friends  and Mamaroneck, congrats to both winners! 

While we didn’t get the TOC bids, WUDL’s Gerety / Applegate of BASIS DC advanced to Octo-Finals, as did teams from the Boston Debate League (Boston Latin), and the Houston Urban Debate League (Heights, Lost Semi-Finals). This opportunity to bring other UDLs together was one of the highlights of the weekend. 

The Highlights: 

In Varsity, BASIS DC’s Applegate and Gerety advanced to Octo-Finals despite being one of the youngest teams in the field — Gerety is still in 8th grade, and Applegate is in 9th! This is their 2nd regional competition in Varsity, and they’re already leading WUDL teams. 

Despite never debating together before, Banneker’s Flores / Goldblatt also went 4-2, only not advancing on speaker points. 

BASIS DC’s Choi / Mazumdar had a few tough losses, but had the 3rd best speaker points in the competition, while Banneker’s McCauley / Primus, BASIS DC’s Chen / Dessalegn, McKinley Tech’s Ejiko / McCauley, and Stuart Hobson’s Webster Neuroth also went 3-3. 

BASIS DC’s Mazumdar was the 3rd overall speaker, a league record for best Varsity Speaker award at a regional competition. 

In JV, Hardy’s Graber / Velez went 5-1, finishing as Semi-Finalists. They wrote a creative new argument about Christian Nationalism, which was the talk of the tournament. 

College Park’s Agbor / Onyilofor and Eliot Hine’s Young / Thorn, both in their first regional competition ever, advanced to elimination rounds all the way to Quarterfinals. Both teams have incredibly bright futures. 

While they didn’t advance to elimination rounds, Clarke / Lauren (Walls) and Pollard-Calliste / Montgomery (Girls Global) also had a great tournament, with 4-2 records.

BASIS DC’s Schmidt / Sehgal, in JV at a regional competition in their third debate ever, were the best 3-3 team in the tournament, finally losing a few rounds but gaining some valuable experience along the way. Schmidt was the 3rd speaker, while Seghal was 5th.

Kettering made their Travel Team debut, with 8th graders Millhouse / Effah going 2-4 in the JV division and Onwubuche / Gullab also winning a round. 

Eliot Hine’s Young (8th) and Stuart Hobson’s Pinson (7th) and Sesay (9th) also won speaker awards in their first regional competition ever.

This weekend, we also hosted an enormous Novice / Rookie competition in the other wing of the building. 

This was one of the more challenging events that we’ve hosted — we’d planned the event under the understanding that we had 104 competition spaces, and ended up with 68 the day of the event. Never the less, we recalibrated and made lemonade out of lemons, with students attending workshops and observing more experienced debaters during some rounds, while everyone got two debates throughout the day. 

Shout outs to Inspired Teaching, Jefferson Academy, DC Prep Edgewood, CMIT South, MacArthur High School making their debuts! 

This enormous event wasn’t possible without the WUDL community. All told, 55(!) volunteers judged over the three days of the competition. 

Special shout outs to all the volunteers who judged a full commitment or more into elimination rounds:

Nathaniel Banjo (6), Alan Coverstone (6), Kaitlyn Hasegawa (6), Liv Birnstad (7 and a workshop), Aisha Bah (8), Eric Clarke (8), Zara Escobar (8), Jonathan Gonzalez (8), Ohm Gore (8) Dennis Martinez (8), Jay Yoon (8)

And fellow UDL coaches Mosie Burke (8), Isaac Chao (9). 

The Team: Mac Clabaugh, Danielle Dupree, and Summerly Sherlock are awesome. Especially glad to have Summerly, who focuses on communications, not programming, come help with the competition and head up our front of house operations.