Rockhurst Hosts Districts, Qualifies One for Nationals

Rockhurst Speech and Debate both hosted the event and advanced one competitor to nationals when the team put on the National Speech and Debate Association Show Me District Debate and Duo Tournament the first weekend of March.

Going into the day, Rockhurst’s confidence was high about their chances competing.

“I felt that as a team we were fairly well prepared. Our cases were polished and well-written, and there weren’t very many arguments that we weren’t prepared to respond to,” senior Thomas Kennedy said.

The debate team puts a lot of work into preparing for their tournaments. The students spend large amounts of time brainstorming arguments, compiling research, writing cases, and thinking of ways to respond to common arguments. The team also does practice rounds before a tournament.

“We start off by looking at the resolution, doing a topic analysis, trying to understand what’s the meaning and the context of the resolution, and answer the question, ‘Why are we debating this today?’” coach Phillip Helt said. “I work with the boy coming up with arguments and locating evidence.”

Going into the tournament, Helt was more concerned about executing the event than how his team would fare.

”I was feeling good. I was more anxious about actually hosting the tournament rather than what the boys were gonna do.”

The event in which Rockhurst performed the best was the Lincoln-Douglas Debate, a bracket style one-on-one debate where the winner moves to the next round. The topic for this year was whether or not the justices of the Supreme Court should be subject to term limits.

Senior Clarence Alexander placed third overall in the event, while Kennedy placed seventh. Alexander’s performance qualified him for the National Speech and Debate Tournament in Phoenix in June.

“It wasn’t a goal for me personally because I didn’t think I was good enough to do it. Getting on the district roster itself was my goal,” Alexander said. “Mr. Helt knew that I was capable of it, but I don’t think I had that belief in myself going into the season.”

Some of the main points that helped Clarence finish as high as he did were his arguments that term limits would tie politics to the Supreme Court, and that term limits would cause instability to our doctrine–or belief set of the United States.

Helt says part of Rockhurst’s success in this tournament is owed to better preparation. 

”We were much better prepared going into this district debate tournament than we were for last year’s.”

Overall, the 2023 district debate tournament presented a showcase of the talent, dedication and hard work of high school debaters from across the Kansas City area. The Rockhurst Speech and Debate team ended having six of their eight entries advancing to the second day. Team members will have more opportunities to qualify for both nationals and state in the coming weekends.

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March 23 update: Over the previous two weekends, the Rockhurst Speech and Debate team qualified two more students to the NSDA National Speech and Debate Tournament and saw six qualify for state.

The weekend of March 11, senior James Donohue and junior Andrew Puthumana both earned trips to Phoenix in June. Donohue placed second in United States Extemporaneous Speaking at the Show Me District Individual Events Tournament at Lee’s Summit West High School. Puthumana placed fourth in International Extemporaneous Speaking.

The weekend of March 18, the team overall placed third in Debate Sweepstakes at the MSHSAA District 9 Speech and Debate Tournament at Pembroke Hill. The six who qualified for state were: