After three years, we finally got to Dallas! 

The Urban Debate National Championship (UDNC), hosted by Southern Methodist University, was originally scheduled for May 2020. As you can imagine, like most other things in Spring 2020, it didn’t happen quite as intended. 

We haven’t had an in-person UDNC since. In 2020, Joey, Jener, and Akesh were all in Middle School (Joey and Jener, debating together, actually lost the final round of Middle School Nationals to Inspired Teaching, while Akesh was in Octos). Liv was a freshman, about to be named our New Debater of the Year, fresh off what would be her only in-person travel tournament for several years. 

Since then, Jener and Akesh left Capital City (where all four of our qualifiers used to go to school) for School Without Walls. All four have grown (substantially), matured, and become really good debaters, folks we are proud to have as ambassadors and representatives of the WUDL. Their shared history made the trip special, as Akesh highlighted that “throughout Nationals, despite coming from different schools in D.C., we were one close-knit team supporting each other and representing WUDL.” 

The trip started at 5 AM Thursday, when Liv, Joey, Danielle, and I (David) went to DCA to catch a flight to New York, to then go to Dallas (because that makes lots of sense). We had to go early so that Liv could give her speech as National Urban Debater of the Year. 

This incredible honor is only the second time we’ve ever had a National Urban Debater of the Year from WUDL, with Jonathan Collins being the first in 2019. Besides a scholarship and immense recognition, the DoY gives the keynote at the Urban Debate National Championship Dinner, hosted at the Bush Presidential Library. Liv’s  speech focused on the transformative potential of debate to help students not just get great opportunities, but to develop the self-efficacy to take advantage of them. 

From then on, it was time to compete. Akesh, Jener, and Eric arrived later that evening, and we came ready to debate. It was clear that our fellow competitors from across the country considered us a serious threat — every team broke a new affirmative case they’d prepared especially for the occasion, and every negative team also had some undisclosed new tricks up their sleeve. 

Despite some fierce competition, Capital City’s Liv and Joey almost swept through preliminary rounds, finishing as the 4th seed with a 5-1 record, the only defeat coming in a low point win by Leon Goldstein (NY), the only 6-0 team after the dust settled. School Without Wall’s Akesh and Jener had a few more speedbumps, but still finished with a strong 4-2 record, dropping tough rounds against Dallas (the 5th seed) in round 2 and Houston (the 2nd seed) in round 5. 

At the awards ceremony, we were delighted to celebrate Liv as the 10th overall individual speaker, and to recognize Dr. Sara Arndt (Banneker) as a finalist for National Debate Coach of the Year.

The debaters were cool as a cucumber heading into elimination rounds. Akesh and Jener lost a tight 2-1 decision against St. Paul Central (MNUDL) in Octos. Advancing to elimination rounds as juniors, however, and losing to a team that would advance all the way to finals in a close round is a great way to close out the year, but Capital City’s season wasn’t quite done. 

Liv and Joey defeated Tulsa in the Octos and Houston in the Quarters before a re-match with Los Angeles from round 4. Los Angeles had just beaten the top seeded Leon Goldstein (NY) in Quarterfinals. After prevailing in preliminary rounds, LA got us in Semi-Finals with a new counterplan we hadn’t heard before, a tribute to their careful prep and coaching.

In January, Liv and Joey had told me that their goal was to set some league-wide competitive records this spring, to push the envelope and show those to come what was possible. While they didn’t quite get to the TOC, they made their mark here. No WUDL team had ever advanced to Semi-Finals before, and Cap City BV has definitely made its mark in the WUDL Hall of Fame. 

As storms bore down on the middle of the country, the tournament’s final round, between LA and Minnesota, was postponed, as were our flights. 

Exhausted after a long weekend of competition, we made sure to get Texas BBQ, got Cap City their ritual milkshakes (eventually, at the airport on Monday), and relaxed at the hotel for an extra day. 

One of the big focuses of the UDNC is community. Joey said “it was a fun experience when I got to interact with other urban debaters like us,” while Akesh highlighted that “this tournament was unique in that I could meet debaters from schools around the country that I had never heard of. There was considerable focus on building community between urban debate leagues which is often ignored in some ultra competitive tournaments.” The social and communiity building opportunities the UDNC re-emerged better than ever post pandemic, and are a big piece of this event. 

As a director, the tournament was a great opportunity to chat and share best practices with my colleagues from around the country. From in depth pedagogical questions about literacy and accessibility to structural conversations about how tournaments are run and programs are designed to exciting updates on the Spanish Language programming in the network, this networking and knowledge sharing was invaluable. 

It was also a great chance for our remote employee, Summerly, to meet some of our wonderful students and get to be a part of the action! Many thanks for taking most of these photos for us!