MURFREESBORO —
The award-winning MTSU debaters hope to conclude their best season ever on a
winning note this weekend.
Pat Richey, director of forensics and debate coach, will
lead his team into Jefferson City, Tennessee, for the final tournament of the
semester at Carson-Newman University Nov. 18 and 19.
They’re coming off a victorious showing Oct. 23 and 24 at
Valdosta State University in Valdosta, Georgia, where MTSU finished first or
second in most categories against bigger and better-funded schools.
“I think it was where the team came together and bonded well
because the first few tournaments we had a lot of new people trying to figure
out where they are in the squad,” Richey said.
“It was great to see the team come together and work not
only to better themselves but other team members as well,” said co-captain Abby
Barnes, a junior double major in communication studies and English from
Morristown, Tennessee.
In addition, Richey’s fellow coaches voted to give him the
Coach of the Year award.
“I just do what I do,” Richey said. “I don’t think there’s
anything special I do as a coach.”
What he does is prepare students, not all of whom have
high-school experience in debate, in the art of being able to prepare cogent,
winning arguments on the spur of the moment and under deadline pressure.
The topics at Valdosta State included non-gendered
bathrooms, climate change and whether Twitter should keep its
140-character-per-tweet limit.
Cameron Bowker, a freshman psychology major from Colorado
Springs, Colorado, did not debate in high school, but she has blossomed under
Richey’s tutelage.
“It has taught me to be much more aware of what I’m saying,
what’s coming out of my mouth,” Bowker said. “I had a habit of speaking way too
fast and using my hands way too much.”
For all the hardware that the team keeps collecting, Barnes
said there’s much more to debating than winning.
“At the end of the day, we don’t just get trophies for the
school,” she said. “We don’t just like arguing. We genuinely love each other,
and we genuinely are a family.”
For more information, contact Richey at 615-898-2273 or patrick.richey@mtsu.edu or go to http://mtsu.edu/debate/index.php.
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