University of Mary Washington dynamic duo Parker Coon and Gabriel Lewis, both seniors, used their debate team super powers to outperform top contenders – including Harvard – last weekend.
As first-year students, Coon, who hails from Bakersfield, California, and Lewis, a Salt Lake City native, traveled across the United States to join the award-winning, nationally ranked UMW Debate Team. In the final policy debate tournament of their UMW careers, the pair landed double-octa finalist spots, besting the Harvard team ranked second coming into the competition. The Mary Washington win was one of the biggest upsets of the 73rd National Debate Tournament (NDT), which took place March 21 to 25 in Minnesota.
Coon, who will graduate this May with a degree in economics, and Lewis, who studied political science, won five of eight preliminary rounds, losing only to the universities of Georgia; California, Berkeley; and Nevada, Las Vegas, all top 16-ranked teams going into the tournament. After advancing to the elimination rounds as the 25th seed, Coon and Lewis lost to another top-16 team, the University of Oklahoma.
“It has been a pleasure coaching Parker and Gabe,” said UMW Director of Debate Adrienne Brovero, newly appointed chair of the NDT Committee. “To have their careers culminate in fierce competition with top-notch opponents is rewarding, and an indication that even small schools can compete among the elite programs in intercollegiate debate.”
Brovero received the Lucy M. Keele Award for outstanding service to the debate community during the tournament’s opening ceremony. Along with Assistant Debate Coach Judd Kimball and alumni coaches Terrell Taylor ’11 and Thomas Linder-Pacheco ’14, she worked closely with Coon and Lewis throughout their four years at UMW. The pair reached the elimination rounds at each of eight tournaments in which they competed this season, finishing first at the UMW Debate Tournament and the NDT District VII Qualifier.
Brovero, who has coached the University’s nationally ranked intercollegiate policy debate team since arriving at Mary Washington in 2006, led them to top finishes in the American Debate Association National Championship in 2009 and 2014. She received the association’s Founders’ Award for Service in Intercollegiate Debate last year and the NDT’s Ross K. Smith National Coach of the Year Award in 2011.
The UMW Debate Team has two remaining public debate competitions, both in April – the Madison Cup at JMU and the Lafayette Debates at GW.
Follow the UMW Debate Team on Twitter @UMWDebate.
That is outstanding!
This is great. However i feel it is also misleading and unclear. Did they actually WIN the competition? I dont think so from the statement “after advancing to the rounds…., they lost to Oklahoma….” and it would have been nice to have explained to the uninitiated what the “octa-finalist spot” is. Maybe that would have clarified whether they won the whole competition or not.