Ask Cruz: Volume XVII

NEW YORK, N.Y. — Seth Teleky unearthed a video of past Bronx Science debaters Jude Volek and Michelle Topal-Teleky — Seth’s older sister — debating for a group of parents on judge training night. Richard B. Sodikow is the moderator. To be honest, we have a ton of such VHS tapes in the debate room — most of them featuring real rounds, not staged ones — and I am always so tempted to upload them. But in any case, I have taken a break from my digitizing plans and brief “debate vacation” — I don’t attend a tournament personally until Woodward next weekend — to post this week’s installment of your favorite debate trivia column. And as always, keep the questions coming; post them here, or shoot me an e-mail.

Matt Thomas asks, “How many people from Catholic schools have actually won NCFLs?”

Great question. The Grand National Tournament of the National Catholic Forensic League operates annually on Memorial Day Weekend; according to the league’s mission statement, “based upon the ideal of open membership, the NCFL welcomes membership to all schools public and private in the United States and Canada.”

To quote from Volume III of this column:

In some ways, the NCFL seems to lack an “institutional memory”; that is, there is no comprehensive list of past champions available. I’ve been working to compile a complete list of past champions. The very first NCFL LD title was won by a debater from Syosset High School; I’ve seen the trophy — I competed on Long Island, after all, so I’ve attended many a tournament at Syosset — but the name escapes me this very moment.

In other words, questions about the NCFL are often tough to answer because there isn’t a complete record of results or even a list of champions available easily. But I’m doing my best to rectify that.

The league, as noted, is open to public, private, and parochial schools; from what I’ve gathered thus far, the considerable majority of past champions — Liz Rogers of Shenendehowa, Chetan Hertzig of Lexington, Beth O’Connor of Hunter College, Nina Thanawala of Ridge, Tara Tedrow of Celebration, and Caitlin Halpern of W.T. Woodson among them — are public school students.

That’s not to say debaters from Catholic schools are not very well-represented.

Ryan Zehner is the reigning NCFL Champion and debates for St. Joseph’s Preparatory School, which is a Catholic school. (Jesuit, I believe.) He became the first Catholic student to win the NCFL since 2002, when Duncan Cooper of St. John’s Preparatory School in Massachusetts took the crown.

La Salle College Prep has won at least twice, with Carl Waldspurger and Arnold Foley both taking home the title. Jessica Rosenberg of Benilde-St. Margaret’s High School won in 1996. Regis won the NCFL at least once in Lincoln-Douglas debate; David Kennedy — who also won the TOC — claimed the championship in 1989.

And, of course, there have been many others — but as I am still compiling a list of past champions as a starting point for really delving into the history of Lincoln-Douglas debate at this tournament, I can’t give an exact number of champions right now.

An anonymous reader asks, “Had Jake [Nebel] been 14th seed at the last year’s TOC instead of 13th and hit Ravi [Sankar] in the run-off round, what would have happened? Did debaters from the same school ever hit each other in a run-off before?”

There would have been a coach over. This situation has happened before. In 2001, my senior year, Bronx Science’s Daniel Ostrovsky and Paritosh Batra hit in the run-off round. Paritosh advanced into the elimination rounds. What makes this situation particularly rough, I think, is that only one of the folks gets to take home a golden pony.

A few questions from Karlyn Gorski! She asks, “Around what year did value criterions start to be used in LD? Who was the first NFL LD champion, and did [he or she] compete in any events other than LD?”

Mary Ambrose was the first National Champion; she debated for Omaha Marion High School in Nebraska, and was thus the beginning of a long line of phenomenal Nebraska Lincoln-Douglas debaters that has carried through to the twenty-first century. Unfortunately, information on Ambrose is scarce. I’ve checked around, researched extensively, and even spoken to the National Forensic League office about her. Not too much to say of her yet, but I will continue my search.

I’ve conducted two exclusive interviews for VBD that discuss the evolution of the standard — either directly or by giving background context — in the past; these would be my interviews with Marilee Dukes and Aaron Timmons. Check them out. (The Dukes interview was a repost of an interview I originally posted on Saturday6AM; I reposted it here well after we folded Saturday6AM back into VBD. As such, it’s largely devoid of comments. So, go ahead and post things!)

And Karlyn, Karlyn — criteria, not criterions!

Dan Cook asks, “Has anyone ever won an octas bid tournament but failed to attend the TOC?”

I am almost positive that when Stuyvesant’s Dina Mishra was a junior and won Harvard, she did not attend the TOC that year. This would have been in 2001.

An anonymous reader asks, “My girlfriend refuses to go to Prom with me because she hates formal gatherings, but I really don’t want to go alone, and if I take someone else, I won’t hear the end of it. Viewing the situation objectively… what should I do?”

I really wish the VBD archives dated back far enough for me to link to “Dear Leah.” Oh, well. In any case, I’d say that if she refuses to attend because she doesn’t like the prom, you shouldn’t be punished for wanting to attend with a friend. That’s my take on it.

And there you have it: the debut of an advice column question here on Ask Cruz. Just keeping things innovative.

—
Jon Cruz is Dear Abby.

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