Brothers make formidable debate partners
There’s nothing unusual about brothers who argue, unless they’re on the same side.
Gonzaga Prep students Mac and Jake Andrews and Joey and Justin Jurkovac not only are on the school debate team together but also are debate partners. By choice.
After a winning performance Friday in a tournament at Mead High School, freshman Jake Andrews, 14, and junior Mac Andrews, 17, declared they’ve always gotten along.
“Oh, you’re full of it,” Ferris High School senior Jonathan Windham joked. “You’re brothers. Come on.”
Windham and his partner, Ferris sophomore Shawn Barcal, had just finished losing to the Andrews brothers in a “public forum” debate on the merits of college early admission programs.
Seriously, Windham and Barcal agreed, the Andrews brothers were “very tight.”
Tight enough to take first place at a recent tournament.
“They were aggressive,” Windham said. “It’s a very passionate aggression.”
That was a considerable compliment, considering that Barcal could finish Windham’s sentences for him.
Barcal and Windham didn’t yet know officially that they had lost the debate, but they sensed it.
“We don’t like to automatically assume we lost,” Windham began.
“But it’s a 75 percent chance,” Barcal finished.
Joey Jurkovac IV and his brother Justin were equally perceptive about their performance against University High School seniors Laura Drews and Matt Stephens.
“We kind of feel that we lost that one,” Justin correctly predicted. “They had some good arguments.”
“It’s the first time we have had this topic, so we don’t really understand it all that much yet,” brother Joey added. “The next couple of rounds, we’ll get better.”
Joey, a 16-year-old junior, and Justin, a 14-year-old freshman, described normal childhoods in which they fought “all the time.” But Justin said that ended when he was about to enter the eighth grade.
“I think we both kind of grew up,” he said, adding that he lost his taste for finding out what irritated his older brother and doing it over and over.
That job has now fallen to one of their two younger brothers.
Joey and Justin placed third in a tournament two weeks ago at Central Valley High School, in which they argued the merits of multinational diplomacy. Even so, they’re no match for their father, drywall contractor Joe Jurkovac III.
The senior Jurkovac wanted his sons to sign up for the debate team – which means signing up for a debate class as well.
That didn’t sound like a lot of fun to them, but Joey said their father invited them to convince him they shouldn’t do debate. He told them a successful argument would prove he was right.
After being outwitted by their father, the brothers discovered they liked debate. And they found being partners gave them an advantage because they could work together at home and kick around ideas at the dinner table.
“I don’t know that I would personally want to debate with a brother or a relative,” their opponent Drews said. “But, if they can make it work, then I think it’s good.”
Anyway, her sophomore brother isn’t into debate.
Andre Cossette, who teaches debate and English at Gonzaga Prep, said most students find their siblings annoying – he considered his younger sister a pest – and pursue separate paths in high school. In 20 years of teaching debate, he has seen only one other set of sibling debate partners – twin boys who competed in only one tournament.
Not surprisingly, Cossette sings the praises of a competition that makes research fun and teaches other important skills.
One has only to walk into a debate tournament to notice “all these kids dressed up in suits and ties,” he said. “So, at the very least, it teaches them to dress for success.”
Are there other benefits, though? How about meeting members of the opposite sex?
Gonzaga Prep junior Tori Dykes said she thinks girls “definitely” can meet a better class of guys at debate tournaments, and Jake Andrews is convinced it’s the place to meet intelligent girls.
Still, said Mac Andrews, “I wouldn’t do debate just to meet girls.”
No, Windham agreed, “That’s what choir is for.”