By Coach Mark Roose
FACT: Debate is not about winning. Debate is about learning! This is true no matter how many years you’ve been debating or how many tournaments you’ve won. You will never run out of things to grow in during your time in Stoa and in life altogether. In the debate world, the amount to learn is endless. Ideally, you would leave as a master of the obvious things like public speaking, critical thinking, and researching. There are numerous other focuses as well, things like reading, writing, time management (in speaking and daily life), social skills, networking, dressing well, walking speed, attention to detail, learning how to handle wins and losses, learning what we can control in life and what we can't, and dealing with injustice. There are a multitude of very important things that we can and should learn from debate. As competitors through high school, we only get four or possibly five years to compete and grow these skills in this environment. We should aspire to develop as much as we can in such a short time. It’s imperative that we make the most of the blessing of competing in Stoa. Stoa is a truly special, nurturing environment for growth. While not always perfect, Stoa is an organization where like-minded people fight for largely the same things. This means it is relatively low risk when pursuing progress. The reward of focusing on growth, personal development, and making yourself and others better people is unfathomable. If our mindset is always that we want to win and won't accept defeat, then we will not grow like we should. We have to set our priorities straight. It's important to understand that after high school, it doesn't matter. Winning in Stoa may help with some college scholarships (only if you really win, though, cause my college said they didn't care). Not only are our lives like mist, here one second and gone the next, but the time spent in Stoa is like a breath of air in our own lives. The goal should be to learn and enjoy it, not just win rounds.
There is a catch in all this. An important question. What drives the growth? What is going to drive us to put in the time and effort required to grow to the degree that we want to? What is going to wake us up in the morning, push us to call our partner, and make us research dredging for 8 hours? Well, it's the faint dream that you might find an argument good enough to use against Spivey/Tomasovic. Understandably, you want to win. AND THAT'S OK! The hunger to win is a powerful motivator that propels debaters to put in the time and effort required for growth. It fuels extensive research and the creation of innovative arguments. It's the special sauce that pushes debaters to explore uncharted territory. To truly grow, we must have a hunger for something. And if the hunger is to win, that’s fine. You have to be careful about this hunger. We can't let winning consume us. My junior year, military year, I was fairly good. I desperately wanted to win a few tournaments and really just beat Reid/Farley. That was my main focus, and well, I didn't grow very much. I had pretty much the same overall record as my sophomore year and the same number of checks. Whenever I lost rounds, especially an out round (I didn’t get to many), I always threw out the ballots and blamed the judge. I rarely took responsibility or tried to implement new tactics to improve myself. When I had in mind that debate was all about winning, it resulted in losses. While the hunger to win is commendable, it must be managed judiciously. Focusing solely on winning can lead to stagnation and missed opportunities for growth. Over the summer of 2022, a lot changed in my life, and I started realizing where my mind and heart was. I decided I would fight to learn and grow no matter what throughout this last debate year. I was fueled to learn and grow because Jackson and I had the goal of winning NITOC. The focus was not to win but to become the best debaters we could be. This is something that is often misunderstood. It becomes a dilemma when amateur goal setters, thinkers, and competitors talk like they want to win without focusing on development and inadvertently ruin the idea. Don't be an amateur. When your parents or friends tell you that debate isn't about winning, agree with them. Ensure you've set goals, that you are working to achieve them, and that you set yourself up to win. To do that, you'll have to remove winning from the list of priorities.
I’ll leave you with some biblical analysis. 1 Peter 4:10 says, “Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.” If you are competing in Stoa and allowed to travel to tournaments with the dream of winning, then you've been given a gift. There are millions of Americans who never get a chance like this, and of course, there are billions of people around the world who would give everything they had to live even a day of your life. You’ve been given this gift not to become conceited and think about purely your own chance at winning but instead to steward the gift properly. That looks like trying to develop and grow that skill, making the most of the gift, and ultimately, when a win comes your way, turning the glory to God, who gave you the gift in the first place.
Good luck in this Stoa season. Go forth and win!
- Mark