Debate team finishes regular season with victory

The Emporia State debate team wrapped up its regular season on a strong note, finishing in the Quarter-finals of the Northwest Cross-Examination Debate Association Championship (NW CEDA) held in Walla Walla, Wash. The team of sophomore Kurt Fifelski and senior Kelly Thompson lost to the 17th ranked team in the country in a close debate in the Quarter-finals.

Debate coach Sam Maurer was pleased with their performance. “Last weekend made a statement not only about our ability to be competitive in many regions nationally,” Maurer said, “but also punctuated as a very strong season for Kurt and Kelly.”

Sophomore Political Science major Kurt Fifelski works through the night, preparing for the tournament.

The success at NW CEDA is emblematic of a strong season-long performance by the senior-sophomore duo. “Kelly and Kurt have developed a reputation as a hard-working, fast-improving team,” said James Taylor, assistant debate coach at ESU. “Winning in the northwest symbolizes the nationwide reputation they are developing.”

Combined, Thompson and Fifelski have logged more than 400 hours this semester preparing for tournaments. “To compete at the level that we want to be at, you have to put the time in,” said Fifelski, sophomore Political Science major.

Fifelski was honored as the 24th overall speaker at the tournament. “Kurt is sort of a phenom,” said Maurer. “He only debated for one year in high school, and now he is pulling-down speaker awards. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen that rate of improvement in a debater and I couldn’t be more proud of him.”

Kelly Thompson, senior Speech Education major, has also become a “dramatically more competitive debater” this year, according to Maurer and Taylor. Thompson was honored as the eighth overall speaker last weekend, his fourth speaker award this season. “Kelly competes everyday with himself, challenging himself to work harder, get better, and maintaining an amazing academic performance while he does it,” said Maurer.

As a team, the ESU debate team had a 3.09 GPA in the Fall, 2007 semester. Maurer attributes this performance largely to Thompson’s leadership.

Although the debate team has no mandatory requirement for time spent working on debate, being nationally competitive like Thompson and Fifelski requires a lot of work. “Between research, practice, and watching film, we spend a lot of time on this,” said Fifelski. The ESU Debate team has produced more than a thousand pages of research this semester alone.

And they will produce much more, according to Maurer. Although they have spent hundreds of hours working this semester already, “Nationals preparation is the hard part,” said Thompson. “So we’re just getting started,” he added, smiling.

Last Updated March 10, 2008>