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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

No debating LC’s status in debate


Students, from left, Jordan Clark, Kelton Peterson-Allen, Michael Gerety, Brooke Lively and her brother, Cale, chat before the start of their debate team practice at Lewis and Clark on Wednesday. 
 (Jed Conklin / The Spokesman-Review)

Debate is taken very seriously at University High School.

“It’s a blood sport,” said U-High debate coach Dave Smith.

So when all the debate coaches in the Greater Spokane League agreed to create a GSL debate championship based on cumulative scores over a season, University High was considered a team to beat.

“They’re pretty much the model program,” said Kelton Peterson-Allen, 17, a junior at Lewis and Clark High School.

But the scrappy Lewis and Clark debate team beat U-High by 1 1/2 points to claim the 2-foot-tall trophy. Both schools had nearly double the points of the third-place school.

“The head coach at LC is my former assistant,” Smith said. “My kids love the fact that the mentee beat the mentor. He played my game a lot better than I did.”

The announcement of GSL debate champion came at the end of February – the first time a GSL debate champ has been determined, as far as anyone can recall.

The league coaches meet twice a year. Last fall, they decided to track cumulative team totals from five GSL tournaments. Only the varsity scores, the highest of three skill levels, were tracked for a mix of debate and individual speech events. Each school’s team members kept their top three scores, which when added up at the end of the year determined a champion.Phil Koestner, a Spanish and debate teacher who led LC to GSL victory, said it’s likely the scoring system will change for future years. The two schools with the largest debate teams finished first and second, he said. It’s a fair bet the smaller schools will want to discuss the system.

“I welcome any proposal to discuss it,” Koestner said.

Koestner did tap into the resources of a large high school like Lewis and Clark.

Peterson-Allen can attest to Koestner’s aggressive recruiting campaign. Peterson-Allen was recruited for the debate team because of what happened years earlier at Chase Middle School. One of the assignments for middle school students was to have students pull a random topic out of a hat and speak about it for six minutes.

“My family is very, very outspoken. Both sides,” Peterson-Allen said.

He spoke about World War II with ease, a feat that percolated around school until it was heard by Koestner, who was working his first job at Spokane Public Schools.

Two years later, Koestner recognized Peterson-Allen in the Lewis and Clark hallways and signed him up for the team.

When Smith heard that story, he laughed.

“That’s why Phil has an incredible debate team,” Smith said. “That’s what coaches who have it in their blood do. I’d do that. I have done that.”

A debate team is like a track team – there are dozens of events and a wide range of skills. There are individual events and there are team events. Students come from all corners of the hallways, from the Goths dressed in black, to the jocks and cheerleaders, to the quiet students who seem too shy to say very much.

“What I like about debate is the kids get very close. They spend a lot of time with each other,” Smith said.

“I’ve had everybody on my team from someone who might be called the biggest nerd in the school to the captain of the football team, a cheerleader,” Smith said. “I’ve had kids who are turned off by everything except debate. I’ve had military kids.”

They all come together and they become very protective of one another, he said.

Rogers High School has about 12 core members who’ve made it to several tournaments this year. This is the first year the school’s had an active team in about 20 years, said debate coach and adviser Bruce Benedict.

On Feb. 5, Rogers won third place at the Thomas S. Foley Forensics Tournament, which earned the school’s first trophy in debate since 1983. It’s one of the more competitive GSL tournaments.

“We’ve managed to play it up around here. I have a bunch of kids coming in and saying, ‘I want to join next year.’ “

On his crew are three guys from the basketball team who juggle both activities, two cheerleaders, two mothers, a Hispanic, an African American, a Russian, a Goth, and what Benedict calls “corn bread white folks.”

“We’ve got the complete spread,” Benedict said.

In the last few years, the list of debate coaches has grown and that has drawn more students, said Andre Cossette, debate coach at Gonzaga Prep.

“If you have a coach in the building and they get fired up then you get a lot more interest,” Cossette said. “Lately, the coaches have stuck around.”

Next year, you can bet that Smith at University High will be ready to play.

“That’s the competitive nature of debate coaches,” Smith said. “There’s always next year.”