Coach of the Year: Gleeson Young (John Francis Education Campus) 

Gleeson almost still fits as a new coach, having started the John Francis team while they were still called Francis-Stevens in Spring 2024. He team burst onto the scene, winning awards across Novice and Rookie in their first semester. Renamed and in their brand new home, they quickly made it clear that it was just the beginning, with 3rd semester debaters like Kiersten Scott and Yakim Awad advancing to JV and winning awards there too. Beyond her team’s competitive accomplishments, the John Francis team is always among the loudest cheering for other teams at awards, and has a great sense of camaraderie while growing quickly. Coach Young has done all of this despite not having an assistant coach with any debate background for half the year, while also hosting multiple tournaments for us in their brand new building. 

New Coach of the Year: Wilfred Sekajipo (Academy of Health Sciences) 

Chloe Mshana represented WUDL at Middle School Nationals for Greenbelt Middle School in 2019, advancing deep into elimination rounds. She went on to debate for AHS briefly, before COVID led the team to collapse. Her little sister Claire went to camp this summer, and caught the debate bug. She and transfer student Ayisha Rodriguez-Akande went out and recruited Mr. Sekajipo to serve as coach, and boy what a great choice they made. His squad has grown to become one of the largest in the league, and they’ve won a pile of trophies at each tournament they’ve attended. Beyond the accolades and warm bodies, he’s inspired his students to love debate and get excited by the activity. Click here to  see that passion in action

Administrative Team of the Year: John Francis Education Campus

This one is pretty simple — they hosted us twice, and were ever so nice! John Francis was always on the calendar to host in December — a nice new building that was a great place to run a tournmaent. They made it easy and stress-free for us right before Christmas. When another school who was supposed to host just couldn’t get it together, John Franics was our first call, eager to be a good partner and fill the gap on short notice. Having a good friend as a backup plan always makes planning our schedule much less stressful. They clearly communicate (and in a timely manner), and are the type of school leaders that try to say yes instead of looking for an excuse to say no.