The Early Champions: Shalini Ramanathan

NEW YORK, N.Y. — “The Early Champions: Where Are They Now?” returns as an occassional feature on VBD. I’ve had the chance to talk with some of the most successful debaters from the earlier days of our activity and get their perspective on both what they remember about LD and how the activity helped shape who they are today.

“I would pay twenty bucks to see Shalini Ramanathan in this feature,” Dave McGinnis commented back in 2006. “She was my (and Jason’s) lab leader at Iowa in ‘92, but I haven’t seen her since then.” Well, Dave, you owe me twenty bucks. Well, not really. But never doubt Jon Cruz’s sleuth abilities! Indeed, today’s piece features the 1990 National Champion, Shalini Ramanathan. Ramanathan won the title as a senior at Newman Smith High School in Texas.

Jon Cruz: Shalini, thank you so much for joining me for this brief interview. You are a past National Champion. What are you doing these days?

Shalini Ramanathan: I develop renewable power projects. I work for a leading developer and constructor of wind power plants and am heading up the company’s effort to diversify into solar, biomass, and other clean energy technologies. I just recently moved back to the US — for the past few years, I lived in Kenya, working as a project developer for a British company with offices in East and Southern Africa. Before that, I worked for the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL).

JC: You remained involved in debate as a much-loved lab leader after you competed. When did you begin to move away from debate?

SR: When I started working and didn’t get summers off anymore! I had a great time teaching. It was fun.

JC: Aaron Timmons remains a major figure in the debate community, and, as a coach, has been on the cutting edge of many approaches to Lincoln-Douglas debate for some time. What was it like to be coached by AT at Newman Smith?

SR:: Mr. Timmons (and I will never be able to call him anything else) is a truly wonderful person. He encourages his debaters to work hard, practice relentlessly, and be good people. Not bad lessons to learn when you’re 17 or 18 and trying to find your way in the world, as I was.

And he changed my life in a very concrete way.

A friend of mine from the University of Texas (where I went after I graduated from Newman Smith) was a reporter working for the AP in Minnesota in 1997. He interviewed Mr. Timmons after one of his debaters won the National Championship. My friend asked Mr. T if he had had any other National Champions. Mr. Timmons said yes, I coached Shalini Ramanathan in 1990. And my friend responded that he had known me at UT. He was then inspired to track me down, and we renewed our friendship. Of course, we were in very different places in our lives. I was living in DC, and he soon left Minnesota for a stint with the AP in New York and then a posting in Kenya. We stayed in touch through all this. And, a few years later, we fell in love and got married. I actually moved to Kenya because of him, and he moved back to the US for me.

So really: Aaron Timmons can take credit for all this, as well as for coaching me.

JC: You made it to finals at TFA State, which is a tremendous accomplishment. Do you remember anything specific about that weekend?

SR: I remember the awful feeling of losing. (Being second in State didn’t feel like an accomplishment at the time.) And I remember Alex Pritchard, who had coached me my freshman year, telling me I had nothing to be ashamed of. I think of that phrase often when things don’t go my way. You do your best, then you square your shoulders and take whatever comes. I actually think handling losses (which I learned to do, believe me) is as important as figuring out what it takes to win.

Josh Shannon (who beat me that year) is a great guy, with a sense of humor so exceptional that I actually remember it after all these years.

JC: Who would you have considered your great “rivals” at the time? What made them great?

SR: I was so fiercely competitive at the time that I considered everyone a great rival. For anyone reading this who knew me back then: I have mellowed out. I do not take myself so seriously anymore. Really.

JC: Were there any particular resolutions or arguments that you liked?

SR: One year there was an awful Texas state topic: Resolved that Oliver North is a national hero.

JC: Many say that Lincoln-Douglas debate has become a lot more “like policy” as the years go by. Were people already saying that when you were debating? What did you see as the big differences — and, for that matter, big similarities — between the two events?

SR: I’d like to think that, because LD is less brief-driven than CX, talented kids from schools with small teams and limited resources have a better shot at competing with the powerhouse schools. But you guys in the trenches will have to tell me if that’s actually happening.

JC: How has debate helped you since leaving debate?

SR: Debate taught me how to present my case passionately and logically. A couple of years ago, when I was living in Kenya, I went to the Zanzibar Music Festival in Stone Town. It’s like the Newport Jazz Festival but with witchdoctor music. It attracts a lot of Europeans. The morning after the festival was over, I had an early morning flight back to Nairobi — and an important meeting later that day with the Kenyan Ministry of Energy. Unfortunately, the airlines had overbooked by 100% and decided to bump off anyone who didn’t have a connecting flight to Europe. I went to the front of the line and — using those debate skills — pointed out that it wasn’t fair of them to punish those of us who actually made our homes in East Africa and flew the local airlines regularly. They found seats for a few of us ex-pats and put me in the jump seat for the beautiful flight to the mainland. Seeing the Zanzibari coastline from the cockpit of that plane is an experience I will never forget.

Below: “It’s me with Chris, my husband, and the Range Rover that saw us through so many of our East African adventures.”

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