debate team members and coach pose at team's trophy case

From left: UT Dallas debate team member Ragya Kaul, coach Scott Herndon and member Alex Baez with the national tournament award.

The UT Dallas debate team ended its season after advancing to the Sweet 16 round of the recent Cross Examination Debate Association (CEDA) national tournament.

Ragya Kaul and Alex Baez, both students in the School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences, represented UT Dallas in the round of 32, defeating the United States Military Academy, 2-1 to advance to the next round, where they fell to Binghamton University, 3-0.

“One of the things that was most impressive about Ragya and Alex’s performance in the tournament was that one is a freshman and the other is a sophomore,” said Scott Herndon, director of debate at UT Dallas and debate team head coach. “I think their success bodes well for the future of our team.”

The debate squad typically features 10 students on five teams. Two UT Dallas teams were among the 80 teams competing at the CEDA tournament. Kaul, an international political economy freshman, and Baez, a political science sophomore, placed highest. Herndon said securing a spot in the Sweet 16 is just one of several similarities to college basketball.

“Our tournaments are like the NCAA basketball tournaments, with play-in, Sweet 16 and Final Four rounds,” he said. “Also, our squad puts in up to 40 hours a week of practice time. Instead of it being rigorous physically, it’s rigorous mentally.”

Kaul said the hard work paid off.

“We put in a lot of effort over the semester,” she said. “We didn’t get as far as we wanted, but it was nice to see that all the time wasn’t wasted.”

Looking to the Future

In addition to the preparation, there also is a lot of scouting going on. Herndon said the UT Dallas teams and coaches carefully study matches of potential foes, scrutinize videos and gather information from other teams.

“We watch for places where they have weaknesses and strengths, how they argue, what takes them too long to answer, where they’re more efficient or less efficient," Herndon said. "And sometimes we’re just evaluating, noting what’s happening in a certain situation or planning on how we might handle a certain situation. We’re trying to win, so we're going to use all the resources that we have."

Although the 2017-18 debate season is complete, the debaters already are preparing for next season.

“Between now and September, we’ll be doing a lot of research,” Herndon said. “The next two months we’ll be updating our files on a number of topics that could possibly be the resolution for the next season. By July, however, the final topic will be announced. And, if we’ve been smart about it, we’ll have a good head start on the research that we’ll need.”

Like the chess team, the debate team is a scholarship activity at UT Dallas. Students who have proven to be good debaters at the high school level are recruited from all over the country. Herndon said that since most of the current team members are freshmen and sophomores, he is expecting the group to improve and compete well next year.

“The future of the UT Dallas debate team looks bright,” he said.