Keeping It Simple

John McNeil and Jed Glickstein’s straightforward approach to debate has helped them become among the most successful debaters in recent memory and, arguably, in the history of Lincoln-Douglas.

They each hold some of the most prestigious titles in the nation: the Glenbrooks, the Greenhill Fall Classic, the Mineapple, the Valley Mid-America Cup, the Iowa Caucus, Blake’s Edie Holiday Classic, and the TOC. (06.18.04 - Editor’s note: They can now add “NFL Nationals” to that list of titles!)

Amid talk of sushi, paperback fantasy books, and Mike Bietz’s online habits, they share their thoughts on winning over judges, theory issues, and the place of persuasion in debate, without hesitating to give some sound advice to debaters of all levels. You’ll find all that and more in this exclusive VBD interview.

Jon Cruz: Did you know that Bietz gave me an Edina sweatshirt at the Vassar tourney? I was being such a tool with it, I’m afraid.

Jed Glickstein: I seem to remember hearing that.

John McNeil: He has more Edina paraphernalia than I do.

JC: [laughs] I am generally too dorktastic for hoodie sweatshirts, so the sight of me in one was enough to provoke laughs.

JG: How do we know when the interview is going on? We’re probably going to say something when we think we’re off air and then everyone will get pissed off.

[interruption]

JG: This is so unprofessional…this is the worst online interview I’ve ever given!

JM: He’s just putting us in our place…it’s an interrogation tactic, to intimidate us, sorta like when they sent the dude a toe.

JG: You owe me so much for that movie.

JC: [laughs]

JG: I think that’s at least 80% of your pop culture references.

JC: Okay, time to start.

You two are frankly among the most successful debaters in the history of LD. When you started your freshman year, did you have any conception that you would be here today?

JG: John and I actually started out in the middle of the pack as freshmen, I think.

JM: Edina had a big freshman class that year in LD. Some of them have wandered off to do other things over the years, though.

JG: Also, I think it’s hard to really understand what debate is about from outside the activity.

JC: Yeah.

JG: It’s still hard to explain exactly what it means to get a bid, or to break at such-and-such a tournament.

JM: or what it means to “hit” someone.

JC: How quickly would you say you absorbed debate culture?

JG: Have you seen A Clockwork Orange?

JC: [laughs] One of my favorite movies - though not Kubrick’s absolute best!

JM: Yes…and not because of you!

JG: Do you remember the part when they force the guy’s eyes open and make him watch those movies while listening to Beethoven?

JC: [laughs]

JG: That’s basically what debate was like.

JM: Sort of a way of rehabiliting yourself from being a violent sex offender? I must admit I have never seen it in that light.

JC: [laughs]

JM: I was pretty obsessed with debate after freshman year.

JC: Did you have any debate ‘heroes’ that first year?

JG: We watched Tom Pryor debate at a local tournament. It was the first varsity round I saw.

JM: Yeah, we were floored by Tom in that round, although I had no real conception of what was going on.

Also, the older debaters on our team, certainly. Like Nick Green and Anita Husen.

JC: We should give a little background of the Edina team for some of our readers. How would you describe the team and its successes at that point?

JG: Well, it was really young. It started the year before our freshman year. Our freshman year, I think only Nick qualed to TOC.

JM: They had already had some success before our year. Nick got a bid and almost qualified to Nationals, I think.

Jed and I benefited from the fact that there weren’t a lot of kids older than us.

JC: Were you two already friends before that point?

JG: No, I met John for the first time at the initial meeting. I asked him were the pop machines were.

JM: I remember we first bonded when we realize that we had both read Roger Zelazny’s Amber Chronicles.

JC: Wow, that is wonderfully dorktastic.

JG: Yeah, you can leave that out if you want. I think if a movie ever gets made about Edina debate, we’ll change both those things.

JC: [laughs]

JM: Yeah. We should get in a fight at our first meeting instead.

JC: “Roger Zelazny’s books have three things in common: a flawed hero who sometimes fails, endlessly surprising plot twists, and a blend of lyricism, literary allusions, and sly puns that makes the pages fly.”

JM: Hey, I still think those books are cool.

JG: Let’s not talk about this. Let sleeping dogs lie, as they say.

–
JC: Besides Nick and Anita, what got you hooked to debate?

JM: As a freshman, I think I got hooked because I had never done anything that required so much critical thinking. It was totally unlike anything I had done in school.

JG: It was fun to win and to travel, I guess. I wasn’t doing anything else in high school, and I liked the intellectual challange and the people

JC: Perhaps I should backtrack - win? Weren’t you in the middle of the pack? When did that change?

JG: Towards the end of freshman year, John and I sort of moved to the top.

JC: Where were your first successes?

JG: I won a tournament called Concordia in Moorhead, Minnesota. I remember tripping going up the stairs before finals.

JC: [laughs]

JM: You said it was a bad omen, but I reassured you, and you went on to win the round.

JG: If you can’t tell, john is the mother figure in this relationship.

JC: What about you, John?

JM: No comment.

JG: John got to semis in novice state freshman year. I remember that was totally cool.

JM: Yeah, I was very excited.

JC: Did you travel at all in the beginning, or did that not come until sophomore year?

JG: No, we just debated at local novice tournaments. I went to valley sophomore year, and John went to the Iowa Caucuses. I think those were our first out-of-state tournaments.

JC: Did you find you had a particular preference for one type of tournament over the other? If so, why?

JM: I think we got assimilated into the national circuit fairly quickly once we started traveling, though we never consciously changed our style.

JC: Well, [Mike] Bietz doesn’t believe that there is a need for adaptation, right?

JG: I don’t know what he believes in. He doesn’t talk to us.

JC: [laughs hard]

JG: I think that more is made of the difference than actually exists. In my experience, the reason I usually do worse at local tournaments is that I think that I won’t do as well.

We are also lucky in that we are pretty close to some really good circuit teams, so local tournaments are never entirely local. Apple Valley, which is a big national tournament, is also one of the top local draws in Minnesota.

JC: What was your initial impression of Bietz at the first meeting?

JM: I first saw him in this big general meeting before we had split into policy and LD. He just sorta wandered in while the head coach was talking. I remember thinking, who the hell is that? By now, I know all to well.

JG: [laughs] We worked with two other coaches first: Anne Weigand and Jess Bailey. Bietz was really the varsity coach.

Bietz was really very mysterious for the first year or so.

JC: I find Bietz’s online persona to be the funniest thing ever, particularly the sense of strange fulfillment I get when something I say moves him to use exclamation points or other such punctuation.

JG: Really? He never does that with me.

JM: Me neither. I feel betrayed.

JG: All he does is say, “that’s tru” - which really kills the conversation.

JC: [laughs hard] YES!

JG: I don’t know how you respond to that.

JC: Same here - I don’t know what’s worse, that or the stupid feeling I get after two minutes of trying to come up with something new and failing.

When did you first start working with him?

JM: As sophomores. At first, I was surprised by how laid back he is in meetings. We just would sit around and talk about anything, rarely the topic.

JG: The cool thing about Bietz is how good he is at facilitating things.

JM: He lets the motivation come from the debaters instead of from him as a coach.

JG: Well said, John.

JM: Why, thank you.

JG: But he definitely did a lot more work in the beginning, when it was necessary, and then really backed off at let us figure things out with each other.

JC: Did you find the laid back attitude frustrating at first?

JG: No, not really.

JM: No, not at all.

JG: He’s laid back, but he also puts very little pressure on people, so it’s not like he was handing us this unreasonable burden.

JM: I’ve always had a tendency to freak myself out about debate, so it’s nice to have someone cool-headed around.

JG: And from reading other interviews on VBD, it seems like other kids had to do more work without the help of anybody, so I don’t think we can complain.

JM: Bietz is also good at thinking of case positions. He’s come up with some of the best cases we’ve ever run. He’s an amazing researcher, too.

JC: You both have a style that’s been described as very ‘different’ from some prevailing national circuit styles, but I sense it’s the style that many coaches (openly or not) want to encourage in their students. Your thoughts?

JG: I actually think our style has become increasingly more anachronistic in the past couple years.

JC: Yet, you keep winning.

JG: I think there’s been a definite shift in how people debate. I don’t think either style is better or worse. I think that we have been more stuck in our ways, whereas others have become more “progressive.”

JC: How would you define ‘progressive’?

JG: It’s like pornography. I know it when I see it.

For instance, I still don’t know what Said or Zizek say.

JM: I don’t think anyone knows what Zizek says. Although I shouldn’t talk, since I’ve used Baudrillard, a man who thinks the Gulf War didn’t happen.

JG: I think that the general test for progressive debate is if a layperson would easily understand it. I think that there are pros and cons either way, but I definitely think it’s become harder to explain arguments to people outside of the activity. A lot of times, when I will tell my parents what is being run, they will sort of look at me and tell me it’s stupid…which a lot of it really is, when it comes down to it.

JM: And Jed’s parents are smart.

JG: But there’s also very smart, strategic critical debate.

JM: At the first camp we went to, our lab leader was Mazin Sbaiti. He emphasizes the importance of advancing a thesis which you should try to make everything in the round support. That’s really hard to do in practice.

JC: I agree.

JM: But I think it’s influenced our approach substantially over the years.

JC: I agree that it’s very hard to do in practice. It’s the approach I take when I coach, and I know my debaters have come under fire for it from some more ‘progressive’ debaters, because, though they make use of cards and give warranted analysis, their theses are often very straightforward and outlined in a manner that is purposely appealing to judges of all preferences and experiences.

What’s funny is that what so many people consider ‘traditionalist’ on the national circuit is still pretty ‘progressive’ to many people who have never left a local circuit. I’m thinking of cards, specifically, even with debaters who deemphasize jargon. This is why the cases that my debaters have run would never be considered ‘traditional’ on a local circuit. What they would be considered on a local circuit is ‘understandable.’

JG: Yeah, I agree.

JM: I think progressive/traditional is a false dichotomy to some degree, especially when you try to classify specific arguments that way.

JG: Not to pontificate, but what I find odd in the activity is that there’s this tremendous fear of admitting that debate is about persuasion. I personally don’t think that many critical arguments are persuasive. Certainly not in thirteen minutes.

I think debaters are terrified about debating persuasively. I know I certainly don’t do it a lot, but I think that the reason there’s been these huge arguments over the nature of topicality, or solvency, or that sort of thing is that debaters want a concrete way to win rounds. They are mortally offended when a judge thinks what they are saying is dumb. I wish more judges would say that, too, I guess.

JC: Would you consider that intervention? I know that is a loaded question.

JG: Well, it’s very scary to just say an argument is stupid, especially because so many judges profess to be tabula rasa. I just think that we’ve swung a little to far in terms of inclusiveness.

JM: The thing is, winning the flow is a persuasive thing to do. They aren’t mutually exclusive.

JC: Agreed, and I’m glad to hear you say that. I haven’t understood the [dramatically polarized] dichotomy either, and what’s frustrating to me, is that I find that people on both ’sides’ of a unnecessary divide have been pushing farther and farther away from each other, to the point that you have people saying that persuasive positions are ’stupid’ and people saying that the flow is ’silly.’

But anyway, this is your interview, not mine.

JG: I don’t want to come out against “critical” arguments. It’s sort of lame how everyone who talks about this issue has to qualify their comments.

And adding to what John said, I think that many judges will reject arguments they find unpersuasive, but they feel much better about it if they have a reason to do so, which is why winning the flow can be so helpful. In those situations, you don’t even have to “win” the flow. You just have to win the judge. Damn, that’s pithy.

JC: I think there can be strength in critical arguments when they are not couched in purposely-confusing text.

JM: I think it’s important not to equate “critical” with “difficult to understand.” I am more of a leftist than Jed is, so I’ve been more likely to draw from authors like Chomsky, Zinn, Bookchin, etc.

JC: I totally agree - and not just as a fellow leftist! I think one can run comprehensible critical positions.

JM: But I think by making a more extreme argument you still have a burden to explain it in an easy-to-understand way. You also have a duty to the authors you’re using, not to dumb down their argument. So it’s a difficult balance.

JC: Have you run outright kritiks before?

JG: Nope.

JM: I’ve never run things that I call a “kritik.” We’ve run things that other people have called “kritiks.”

JG: [laughs] That’s true.

Apparently, I was running biocentrism at TOC. I had no idea it was even called that.

JM: But the bottom line is that as a debater, you have to prove the resolution true or false depending on which side you are. Whether you use traditional or nontraditional literature to do that, what you are attempting the same logical goal.

JC: I guess people wonder a lot about what goes on at Edina meetings. Do theory discussions like this happen a lot?

JG: Most Edina meetings consist of us making fun of people or talking about the news. It’s always a scramble to get ready. I’m always amazed at how things coalesce at the last minute for us.

JM: We almost always are writing cases at the last minute, and we never do practice rounds.

JC: [chuckles] What would you say the magic formula for your team’s success has been, then? Or is there no magic formula?

JG: I’ve never thought about it. Hopefully John will pick this one up.

JM: Well, we work really hard and we’ve had a lot of smart teachers.

JG: Tell people it’s pills.

JM: I eat a lot of lemons.

–
JC: How quickly did you two become friends after that magical revelation about your similar reading habits?

JG: We were friends pretty much right away. We didn’t have that many classes together outside of debate, excluding this year, though.

JM: during that summer i stayed at Jed’s house for a few days when my parents were away. We got to know each other better then.

JG: [wink]

JC: [laughs]

JM: That’s when Jed changed my life by exposing me to The Big Lebowski.

JG: [laughs hard] I didn’t think that could get more blatant. I bet $10 John didn’t even realize that was a double entendre.

JC: [laughs hard] Please…that had to be intentional.

JM: I’ll let our readers be the judge.

JG: This has to go in the final version.

JC: Of course. [laughs]

JG: I was laughing so hard at that. That had to be the first time in six months I’ve laughed out loud from an online conversation.

JC: You know what? I don’t know where to go after the Big Lebowski comment.

[pause]

JG: it’s tru

JC: [laughs hard]

Sorry to be lame-o and change back to an earlier subject –

JG: No problem.

JC: When did you guys first gain confidence in your debating?

JG: Junior year I broke at Greenhill and somehow got to quarters. I remember that being big for me.

JM: Yeah, I think it was junior year. Once I got two bids that year that was a big confidence boost.

–
JC: Let’s talk non-debate for a while. The style. The hair. Let’s talk about it. Your loyal fans want to know more.

JG: I had been trying to get john to shave his head for TOC for a long time but he wouldn’t do it. I thought it would be very GI Jane-esque.

JC: [laughs]

JM: You also tried to get me to give up vegetarianism. But I’ve held fast to my principles.

JC: Nice. What about the sweater look? The bowtie?

JG: The sweatervest is just because I hate suitcoats. Plus it’s slimming.

JC: Scarsdale totally copied you. And they admit it.

JM: I dunno why I started wearing the bowtie.

JG: If anyone has seen the Strangers With Candy debate episode, they’ll know that debate is 5% what you say and 95% how you look saying it. Maybe the percentages are off, but that’s the gist.

JM: So true.

JG: I’d also like to take this opportunity to say that I was an original SWC fan, not someone who jumped on the bandwagon once the DVDs came out.

JC: I’ll have to ask Jake Gelfand when he got into it.

I can’t tell you how many people look up to you, including people who have never met you but know about your accomplishments. Do you plan to stay involved with the activity, and if so, in what ways?

JG: I’d like to judge, certainly. I definitely think that debate has been the most important activity for me in high school, so I feel a certain obligation to give back.

JC: Well, you are both judging at Vassar, and the Vassar Round Robin, so that is a good start. [laughs]

JM: I feel the same way. I’m not sure how much time I’ll be able to devote to it, but I’d like to at least try judging.

JC: Awesome. You’ll both be teaching this summer at VBI. What do you most want to relate to your students?

JM: To be honest, I’m a bit scared to try to teach people about debate. I’ve never really thought about it from an objective standpoint instead of just what works for me.

JG: I think it would be nice if people stopped blaming judges for losses. I know I said it before, but I firmly believe debate is about persuasion, and if a judge doesn’t vote for you, that’s your own goddamn fault. Bietz once told me that if you really believe that judges are out to screw you or out-politic you, you should just quit the activity. Otherwise, I think debaters would do well to just realize that they lost the round because of what they did.

JM: Sounds like a pretty good module to me: self-esteem training with Jed.

JC: Let’s switch to some non-debate stuff briefly. John, if you are a truly a cream soda expert - Olde Brooklyn, A&W, or Mug?

JM: IBC.

JC: Ooo! Good call.

JM: Actually, I don’t know that much about it; I’ve just unilaterally decided to give myself that title.

JC: Fair enough. Cream soda is my favorite, but Tab has to be a close second, admittedly. What about the sushi match? It’s been attracting interest on Westman.

JM: Do you want to tell the story, Jed?

JG: It’s not really a story. We went to this buffet as a team for some reason, and I ended up eating 75 pieces. Actually, that’s an approximation. I think I ate 35 plates, but some were bigger than others and some were appetizer bowls, so we rounded.

JC: That is insane. Do you have any favorite kinds? Wow, I am being so lame.

JG: I think it’s all great. Buffet stuff is generally pretty bad, though.

JC: [laughs] Definitely.

JG: But like Mao said, quantity is a quality all to its own. Bietz taught me that.

JC: [laughs] Nice.

As I said at the start, objectively speaking, you are among the more successful national circuit debaters in the history of LD. You are coached by a man who is not only one of the coolest people I have the privilege to know, but one of the most successful coaches in the history of LD. Yet you two remain, by all appearances, very modest. You are also both very cool. How do you do it?

JG: It’s all very corporate. We have a group of professionals who tell us what to wear. Oh, wait, that’s Nik Severson.

JC: [laughs]

JG: [laughs] Don’t put that in.

JC: I won’t.

JG: Actually, you can if you want to. God, that is going to come back and bite me in the ass.

JM: What can he do to you?

JG: Actually, I really like Nik. He’s a really cool guy.

JM: Jon, I’m amazed at how you seem to know everyone in the debate community.

JC: [laughs] I’m a dork like that.

JM: It’s cool.

JC: So how do you remain so modest? Or is this question totally dead?

JG: I guess pills, again.

JM: I was about to say that.

JG: Aren’t we cute?

JC: [laughs]

JM: I guess I feel that my success is so much dependent on other people (teammates and coaches) that I feel I can’t really take credit for it. That’s probably the best answer I can give.

JC: I have a maybe uncomfortable question to ask first, but I think it is a question to which many debaters might relate.

JG: You are the Barbara Walters of debate: unafraid to ask even the most controversial questions.

JC: [laughs]

You mentioned Nick earlier. We haven’t really talked about him. Nick was also extremely successful on the circuit. You both had extraordinary records last year, but as the senior on the team, I suppose a lot of attention was paid to him exclusively. Did you ever feel you had something to live up to?

JG: No, not at all. That’s a really easy question for me to answer.

JM: No. We’ve never been competitive within the team.

JG: Nick was Bietz’s first really successful LD kid nationally, so there was a certain connection that they had that we didn’t, but I never felt like it mattered.

JM: I thought Bietz had some successful LDers at Hopkins or somewhere?

JC: He did. [laughs]

JG: Well, at Edina at least.

JC: [laughs]

JG: I’ve said this to people before, but to be in Nick or John’s shadow is not a bad place to be.

JM: Oh nonsense. You aren’t in anyone’s shadow.

JG: It’s okay, honey. I’m just speaking metaphorically.

JC: I didn’t think you were speaking physically. [laughs]

JM: The thing is, all three of us worked so closely together that really we are all responsible for the success that we have each had.

JC: Awesome.

JG: We were also very lucky that brackets (usually) lined up, so there have been only a handful of instances where we knocked each other out. That’s realistically been helpful.

JC: Final question.

JG: Oooh - final question.

JM: I’m ready.

JC: “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always gotten.” That’s something Bietz has said before. Many debaters want to know what it is they should ‘do’ to be successful. What advice would you have for them?

JG: I think that people should just be more confident in themselves. I hear responses in rounds against people that aren’t really well known that are just as good as any I hear in break rounds.

I think that too many debaters give up. They let themselves be bullied around, especially in CX. Tim Hogan, who I think is a really excellent debater, was great at not doing that. Try as I might, I could not get him to look dumb - that’s probably why I’m 1-4 against him!

I think what Tim had most of all was confidence. Judges pick up on that confidence.

JM: I think Tim’s really smart. But I agree that confidence is important.

I think people get too caught up sometimes in being too tricky with there arguments and strategy when all that is really necessary is to have a simple, well explained position that clearly affirms or negates. If you keep it simple it’s a lot easier to control the round.

I think common sense is underused in debate rounds. People should step back and think about the big picture more, about what they actually have to prove to win. Jed’s right.

JG: Hell yeah.

–

This fall, Jed Glickstein will attend Yale University and John McNeil will attend Wesleyan University.

Popularity: 1%

test

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 12th, 2004 at 10:31 am and is filed under Interviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.