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26 September 2006

| Nick and Jason vs. Georgia | |Steph and Leslie prepare |

|John and Dave|

|ATL from the hotel|

The teams of Jason Hitchcock and Nick Landsman-Roos (Vermont HL) and Leslie Keller and Stephanie Kimerer (Vermont KK) were in full force in Atlanta representing the LDU this weekend at Georgia State University. The weekend was off to a hectic start even before depature. With the realization of the first tournament looming with in twenty-four hours, both teams were busy at the office printing and organizing until late in the evening. Both the new Coaches were at the office with the teams until late, but could keep up with the self-motivation of the teams and eventually left, while the teams pushed through.

After getting to the airport and on the plane, we thought the only thing we had to deal with was debating and representing the LDU to their fullest. Unfortunately there were issues with renting the vehicle and the team was at the airport without a car. Luckily. the Univeristy of Kansas was able to help us and gave us a ride to the hotel. Put the debaters and coaches were not detered from their mission of winning debates. After arestful sleep the team was ready to face the challenges and excitement of the first debate tournament of the year.

Following a a grueling day of travel, both teams entered Saturday morning with business on their minds. Nick and Hitch dealt out losses to teams from Texas-San Antonio, Northwestern, and Georgia. Unfortunately, they could not predict Texas's counterplan to exclude the word "the" from the plan, so the guys ended up 3-1 for the day. They debated very well, for the first one back. Leslie and Steph had a bit of a rough start, but closed out in style.
After three nail-biting losses to Oklahoma, Richmond, and Case Western, the ladies came out with a win round four against Baylor. In each of the first three debates, the decision was virtually a toss up, and every judge had nothing but positive comments. Leslie and Steph handled themselves with class, paying careful attention to the comments of their judges and asking all the right questions about how to fix things for the next time around. Coahes John and Dave couldn't be more proud. Their attitudes remained upbeat, and their confidence paid off round 4 when they did something that District 3 could not. Facing acounterplan, Vermont KK's quick thinking captured the win.

After a second day of competition on Sunday, LDU debaters barely missed the cut to advance into elimination rounds. Nick and Jason lost the first two debates on Sunday to Harvard and Northwestern, but picked up round 7 in a tough debate against Mary Washington. Going into round 8, the guys had a shot to get into out-rounds, but first they had to face Miami (Ohio). Although they were dissapointed in the decision, the judge, Will Repko of Michigan State, told them after the round that he has never seen a team make so much progress from the NDT to the next year's season opener. The debate was extremely close, but after a long period of deliberation, Will sided with Miami. Nick and Jason handled themselves well, and have a new degree of focus for future national tournaments. Leslie and Steph also debated Harvard and Northwestern in the morning, dropping two close debates. They showed a lot of heart, however, and came back to win the last two debates over Emory and Louisville. In these last two rounds, Steph and Leslie showed the diversity of argument they have at their command, defeating Emory on topicality, and then using a mix of performance and policymaking to come out ahead of the Ville. In the debate they lost round six to Northwestern, John Sharp of Kentucky awarded a high point loss, leading Dave to say, "They got the skills now we just need get them better evidence." The judges had nothing but compliments to say about both teams escpecially in rounds they lost.

Jason, Nick, Stef, Leslie, and the Coaches all understand that despite the relative success in the first tournament there is still many more debates to be had, leaving much room for improvement. They would also like to extend a warm thank you to all the alums and supporters of the LDU, Including Brian and Etta Hitchcock who helped with the teams lack of transportation at times.

NON-DEBATERS AND THEIR OBSERVATIONS OF POLICY DEBATE

In most cases debate rounds consist of only four debaters and a judge. However, with Hitch being from the south, Debate was opened up to non-policy debaters. Aside from his parents and family, friends, Sally Miller and Chris Carr , observed their first policy debate round between Vermont HL and Northwestern on day one. They were blown away with the speed, but overall were intrigued. Chris Carr (artist) drew a picture that sums up his reaction to the deabte round:

...And now Cornell

With GSU behind us the team prepares and gets ready for Cornell. The LDU will be represented by roughly 36 members with Vermont novices filling about a third of the division. While nick has to take the LSATs, Hitch will still be there to help coach and judge and show his overall support of novice debate, which was the basis for his success. "I look forward to helping the new debaters just like the Senior debaters helped me when I was in their position," he commented. Stef and Leslie will be there hoping to build off of GSU, along with others who will be attending their first tournament of the year. Teams include: Megan Harlow & Ethan Nelson, Sumeet Sharma & Jeffrey Wilson, Matt Jokajtys & Sam Lavallee, Taylor Lalemand & Jacon Mayer, Alex Thibault & Ethan Backus. Aside from the class Daniella Goldschnieder & Madeline Murphy-Hall, Josid Rodolfo, and Mandy Frank will be representing the novice division. We enter the tournament with our heads held high and our goals even higher. The LDU hopes that Cornell will be a better tournament overall than GSU.

TRAVEL SCHEDULE

The LDU has announced its tentative travel schedule for 2006-2007. All tournaments are USA Policy debate format, those marked BP are British Parliamentary debate format.

FALL ACTIVITIES:

UVM will once again participate in the UN Education Fund "The People Speak" Events. Activities include a speak out on campus along with public debates that will be available for viewing on the internet. All LDU'ers, LDU supporters and Alums are invited to help out with any of these. More information regarding these activities will follow as the dates get closer. Please email dvereg@gmail for information on how to help/get involved.

FLASHPOINT TELEVISION

John will begin taping flashpoint episodes soon.  The topics relate to the top ten undercovered stories for 2006.  Everyone and anyone can sign up to film these episodes.  It will begin the first weekend when there is not a tournament.  John is doing all the research for both sides all you have to do is show up and talk about the undercovered stories at hand.

Here are some recent programs now available at http://debate.uvm.edu/flashpoint.html. Watch on Burlington Channel 15 Tuesday 12:30 PM, Thursday 10 PM, Saturday 1 PM.
Next taping will be in September. John Hines and Brady Fletcher are now program coordinators.

SQUAD MEETS AT 6 PM EACH MONDAY NIGHT, 475 MAIN STREET, ALL WELCOME!

ALWAYS CALL IT HUBER HOUSE!