Ten debate teams from five Metro schools competed in the Nashville Debate City Championship Tournament, Saturday, March 26.
Antioch High School, Hillwood High School, LEAD Academy, McGavock High School and Nashville School of the Arts each fielded two experienced teams in this incredibly competition “Qualifier” division of policy debate, which was hosted by Hillwood High School.
There was another division of competition for other students, in which 11 additional teams from five schools competed. In it, Stratford High had teams in the “participant” division and McGavock entered teams in the experienced, “qualifier” division. In all, 42 students from a total of six different schools participated in the City Championship.
A big congratulations are in order for the City Champions from Nashville School of the Arts, A.J. Davis & Nicholas Driscoll. The team was coached by John Newsom & Miguel Cooper, as well as parent-coaches Lisa and Don Driscoll. For winning, the NSA team will represent Nashville Debate at the 2011 Urban Debate National Championship in New York City. The McGavock High School team will also travel to NYC to compete in the National Championship.
Coming in 2nd was a McGavock High School team of, Escarlet Escobar and Elliott Martin. The pair are coached by Jan Newsom and Nancy Sturdevant.
The 1st place team from NSA was undefeated in the four-round tournament and the 2nd place team’s only loss was to NSA’s Davis & Driscoll. McGavock’s Escobar & Martin tied for 1st Place Speaker.
All four students have consistently placed at the top of Nashville Debate competitions throughout the 2010-11 school year in both team and speaker awards. Teams from LEAD Academy (2 teams) and NSA (one other team) rounded out the top five.
Nashville Debate builds and supports policy debate teams by providing training, technical support and competitive opportunities. Urban debate leagues are highly efficient, cost-effective programs with tremendous value to the individual debaters & teachers, the participating schools and the broader community.
