2007-2008 Year End Results!

The 2008 NDT was in Fullerton, CA, March 26-April 1, 2008)

Missouri State's Martin Osborn and Clay Webb reached the semifinals, tying the record from 1973 set by Tom Black and Jon Jackson. They competed as a 1st round large bid bid to the 2008 NDT, which was the 2nd time Missouri State secured a 1st round bid. Their elim run included a win over Emory, who had been 8-0 in prelims, top seed, and 2nd in the Copeland voting based on their year-long performance.

Missouri State's Michael Mapes and Meggie reached the octofinals, which we believe means this is the first time Missouri State has advanced two teams to the NDT elimination rounds. Their 6-2 run through prelims included a 3-0 win over Berkeley, who had been the Copeland Award winner (the top vote getter in the 1st round voting process).

Martin Osborn won 1st speaker, surpassing Bill Maynard's previous Missouri State record (2nd speaker, 1955). Osborn was also the 1st speaker at the CEDA Nationals the week before, and is the first debater in history to win BOTH top speaker awards in the same year. Michael Mapes was 17th speaker. The field included 156 debaters.

 

The week before, Missouri State sent 5 teams to CEDA Nationals in Wichita Kansas (March 19-25, 2008)

The team of Martin Osborn & Clay Webb also reached the semifinals, meaning they had the best combined elim depth at both national tournaments. They eventually lost to a team from Towson State University, but our teams rebounded and gave Towson 3 of their 4 losses at the NDT.

Martin Osborn was 1st speaker at CEDA, our of a field of over 360 individual debaters.

Two additional teams cleared to elim rounds at CEDA. The team of Jessica Johnson & Jordan Foley cleared, and were eliminated by the eventual national champions. The team of Aaron Kruse & Kristen Stout cleared and won their partial doubles round before losing to Kansas A. Jessica Johnson is a senior, but the other three are freshmen.

Alumni: If we have your email, we attempted to send you an email detailing the season. You can also read it below. If you didn't get it via email, please drop a note to Dr. Eric Morris so we can add you to future email updates.

The 2008 Missouri State Debate Institute is now open for registration - see link on the side. Our institute has moved up to late June (after NFL Nationals), and includes both a two-week and three-week option! An earlier problem with the online entry page has been corrected, and it should now work correctly.

 

Welcome to the Holt V. Spicer Debate Forum at Missouri State University!

Whether you are a prospective debater, high school student or coach seeking a debate institute, program alumni, a debater from another program request cites, or just curious about the debate program, you've reached the right place.

 

The time-efficient overview

                Missouri State reached the semifinals of both major national tournaments (NDT/CEDA) this year. Our of one debaters won 1^st speaker at BOTH nationals in the same year, which has NEVER been done before. We cleared two teams to NDT elims, which we believe is a program first. Both of those teams cleared at every tournament attended all year long.

 

The more detailed overview

The 2007-2008 season was an exceptional year for the Holt V. Spicer debate program. Some of our competitive highlights include the following:

-          Semifinals, National Debate Tournament (Martin Osborn / Clay Webb). This duplicates 1973 as our best performance at the NDT!

-          Two teams in NDT octofinals (Osborn/Webb and Michael Mapes/Meggie Mapes). We believe this is the first time in program history we’ve had two teams compete in the sweet 16 at the NDT.

-          Semifinals, CEDA Nationals (Martin Osborn / Clay Webb). This is the program’s first appearance in the CEDA final four since 1992. Since CEDA Nationals began in 1985, we’ve had a 1^st place (1992), a 2^nd place (1990), and three semifinal finishes (1988, 1991, and 2008).

-          Three teams cleared at CEDA Nationals (Osborn/Webb, Jessica Johnson/Jordan Foley, and Aaron Kruse/Kristen Stout). We also cleared 3 teams in 2006.

-          1^st Round At-Large bid to the NDT: Martin Osborn/Clay Webb. Sixteen debate teams nationwide earn this honor, based on season-long performance. Osborn/Webb earned a 1^st round, finishing 12^th in the voting. Mapes/Mapes were close, finishing 18^th. The first ever Missouri State 1^st round was in 2006 (Matthias Bostick / Michael Mapes). Several other recent teams have had the records to finish in the top 25 or so.

-          Top Speaker, 2008 National Debate Tournament: Martin Osborn. We believe this the first time we’ve had a debater win this award. Michael Mapes was 17^th speaker as well, in a field of 156 debaters.

-          Top Speaker, 2008 CEDA Nationals: Martin Osborn. We also think this is a program first. Furthermore, we believe it may be the first time in debate history that a single debater has been top speaker at BOTH the NDT and CEDA Nationals.

-          Debater of the Year Award: Martin Osborn. This is a relative new award, established in 2004 to honor former UMKC debater & CEDA champion Brian Johnson. This is the first debater from our program to win this award.

-          Top Speaker, University of Kentucky: Martin Osborn. “Ozzy” was also top speaker at a regional tournament (UT Dallas), and 2^nd speaker at most other national tournaments (Georgia State, Wake Forest, USC, Cal State-Fullerton, and University of Texas). His 6^th speaker award at Harvard was the lowest of the year.

-          Four teams qualified to Wake Forest. All schools get two entries, but 3^rd or 4^th teams only qualify if all debaters have cleared twice in open, or at a past CEDA, or qualified to a past NDT. Since this policy began in 2005, Missouri State has qualified the maximum of 4 teams each year, including this one. Generally, only about 6 schools nationwide qualify 4-deep to Wake Forest.

-          Clearing without exception: the teams of Osborn/Webb and Mapes/Mapes cleared at every tournament attended, regional or national. Precisely 13 debate teams nationwide achieved this distinction, and two of them were ours.

-          And, last but not least, an extremely well attended alumni reunion in August. Some alumni have asked that we do those every three years instead of every five. We shall be looking into that!

 

Who is leaving?

We have three impressive seniors leaving the program: Martin Osborn, Michael Mapes, and Jessica Johnson. Here’s some quick information about each.

Martin was recruited from Wyoming of the Heather Walters’ lab at the KU debate camp. Although his high school program traveled only regionally, he did qualify to the high school national circuit’s Tournament of Champions. His final two years have included an amazing word ethic (several thousand cards cut over summers and during the season), an impressive string of speaker awards, and considerable respect in the debate community for not only his skills but his personality.

Michael was recruited from Lemars, IA out of Eric Morris’ lab at the KU debate camp. His high school experience included some local national circuit tournaments, though his high school program did not reach the Tournament of Champions until after he left and starting helping coach them. He has won a wide number of tournaments, secured Missouri State’s first ever 1^st round bid in 2006, and has been one of the most feared opponents in college debate for several years. His senior year ended with his best-ever finish at the NDT, which included a 3-0 win over the Copeland winning team (top voted team in the 1^st round voting) from UC Berkeley.

Jessica was recruited from Lyons, KS by a program alumni at the KU debate camp. She is one of the most consistent and tireless workers on the team, and has an incredible attitude. Debating with a freshman, she finished 13^th in the 2^nd round at-large voting. The top 16 qualify to the NDT, but the rules currently allow only 6 schools to bring their qualifying 3^rd team and there were too many other 3th teams higher. Her career highlights included clearing at CEDA Nationals (where she lost to the eventual champion), defeating two teams that reached the NDT semifinals, and helping her promising freshman partner (Jordan Foley) improve more quickly. Jessica is also an incredible student, and has managed to juggle more external commitments (mulitple internships, study abroad experiences, etc.) than any seriously committed debater in recent history.

 

What was the topic?

Resolved: that the United States Federal Government should increase its constructive engagement with the government of one or more of: Afghanistan, Iran, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, and Syria, and it should include offering them a security guarantee(s) and/or a substantial increase in foreign assistance.

                Most of the cases run by Missouri State focused on Iran, Syria, and the Lebanon. Osborn/Webb spent most of the year advocating a “package deal” to address the Iranian nuclear program, while Mapes/Mapes primarily run a case which took the threat of “regime change” off the table. Foley/Johnson, Kruse/Stout, and Husney/Kinder primarily ran cases which sought a negotiated settlement including the Golan Heights and Syrian involvement with Hezbollah. Rowland/Garder primarily ran a case arguing for better treatment of refugees in Lebanon based upon the philosophy of Levinas.

On the negative, major disadvantages included US-Israel relations, Olmert coalition split (Israel), Assad Coup (Syria/Lebanon), Karzai Credibility (Afghanistan), Iranian Moderates, 2008 elections, Russian sphere of influence, and US diplomatic credibility. The primary topicality disputes were about whether constructive engagement required (or even allowed) for a demand of reciprocal concessions from the target country, and whether negative guarantees had to be negative (we won’t attack) or positive (we’ll defend from others). Critical arguments include a range of authors, including Said’s writing on orientalism, cultural imperialism, realism, archetypal psychology’s perspectives on war, the meaning of the label “terrorism”, and security dilemmas.

 

Coaching staff

                Our coaching staff this year included Dr. Eric Morris (Director), Dr. Heather Walters (Asst. Director), Louie Petit (GTA), and Sheena Walters (GTA). Each of us attended something in the range of 15 tournaments. We had occasional judging assistance from both debate alumni (Randy McCoy, Natalie Pennington, Matt Vega) and others in the community (Thad Blank, Spencer Johnson). We are in the process of recruiting 1-2 GTA’s for next fall, as Louie has accepted a position as the Assistant Coach at University of North Texas and Sheena may finish early.

                During the NDT, we were able to travel with five debaters that didn’t qualify to the NDT. Per NDT guidelines, they each made themselves available to scout all prelim rounds (for the collective scouting effort), and also did spot research between rounds or late at night. Given the number of new cases and disadvantages at the NDT, their assistance was extremely valuable to our competing teams.

 

What about next year?

                We expect to return two NDT qualifiers (Meggie Mapes & Clay Webb), a sophomore (Josh Gardner) and several freshmen (Jordan Foley, Aaron Kruse, Kristen Stout, Rebecca Husney, Judith Rowland & Jarid Kinder). Most of them traveled to the 2008 NDT to do scouting for the tournament and research work for our competing teams. We will have a better feel for our fall 2008 recruiting class in a couple of months, though we’ve had contact and interest from over 20 debaters, and we expect those numbers may grow given recent success.

                The 2008-2009 topic will be announced in late July. We’ll know the topic area in early May. Our debate camp, the Missouri State Debate Institute, has been growing quickly. This year, it is moved up (on top of KU) to enable some of our coaches to work at the larger camps in the late summer. With the NDT completed, debaters are re-focusing their attention on classes (both CEDA and NDT were over spring break!) and are also doing backfile research on recurring topics for future years.

 

 So – when is the party?

                Well, we do have some events in the works. We’ll post them on the website (http://debate.missouristate.edu/default.htm) when finalized. If you want an email notification as well, just write back and we’ll make sure to get you one. We also are trying to drum up positive publicity for the debate program, so tell us if any of it finds its way to you. Finally, if you have contact info for other alumni that we might not have email addresses for (most our email addresss info was related to the reunion last year), please spread the word or, better yet, help us find them.

 

Dr. Eric Morris

Director of Forensics, Holt V. Spicer Debate Forum

 

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