Chapter 152: Unto The Breach, One Last Time

Sunday, June 24, 1984

We were up by seven-thirty, which was earlier than we needed to be up. Neither of us could sleep any longer, though.

We seriously considered taking advantage of the bed, but sex has been known to make both of us sleepy (Yes, Jas too! Not just me being a typical guy!), so we decided to pass on it. We would have plenty of chances, after all. Not here, in some random dorm room at Trinity, but that wasn’t a big thing.

Instead, we got dressed and headed off to breakfast. There were indeed far fewer people around. I suspected anyone who hadn’t made it to quarterfinals was sleeping late or doing something else unless they either had teammates still competing or really wanted to watch rounds.

Personally, I would watch rounds, even now when it couldn’t possibly help me (well, barring another go-round and Nationals going just like it had up to now, which was actually such an unhappy thought that it probably still wouldn’t help). There were so many interesting people here to watch. Even if all of the Memorial kids were done, I think we’d all stay and watch rounds.

Hopefully, Meg would never actually have to test that theory, though!

Semis breaks came out just before ten. By that point, all of the Memorial people were here, plus Mom and Dad and the other parents.

The surprise was the same as it had been: we were all still competing. Both Meg and Steffie were thrilled with that. They’d done well last year, of course, and we hadn’t necessarily done better yet, but we’d — at minimum — upheld Memorial’s reputation as a nationals-worthy program.

Our opponents this round would be Laura and Moira. I wasn’t thrilled with that, but I wouldn’t have been thrilled with anyone remaining. Everyone was tough, and we knew all of them.

The other round was Natalie and Brenda against Mike and Steve. We still had a shot at an all-Texas finals, but it was also entirely possible that Texas wouldn’t be represented at all.

Either way, though, two of the four remaining CX teams this year were from Texas. Not bad at all!

Jaya was in the same boat. Carla Gutierrez, who was from very close to here, and who’d beaten Jaya at State, was competing in the other LD round.

Marshall was still competing, too, but the second-place duo team from Texas was out at this point. Even so, we were definitely representing our state well, with only one of the top finishers from Texas not making semifinals at Nationals. No other state could say that!

Mom and Dad decided to go watch Jas and Carole’s Duo round, as I’d guessed they would. They could one day say that they’d seen both of their daughters-in-law competing at Nationals (along with both of their own kids). How many people can say that? It can’t be very many, can it?

Laura sighed when we came in.

“It had to be you!” she said, rolling her eyes. “We wanted the South Dakota guys.”

“They’re really, really good,” Cammie said.

“You’re the ToC champions!” Laura said. “You’re really, really good!”

“So are you, ToC runners-up,” I said, smiling.

“Well...” Moira said, drawing it out. “You do have a point there.”

We shook hands, but then hugged, just as we had before.

Two of the judges came in while we were hugging. One of them said, “I guess we don’t have to worry about you two coming to blows.”

“Does that happen?” Cammie said.

The other judge said, “I’ve heard of it happening, but never seen it.”

“Same for me,” the first one said, smiling, as the third judge came in.

“We’re pretty unlikely to,” Moira said. “Though we’d have the advantage.”

The third judge, a woman, raised an eyebrow.

Moira grinned. “He’s a gentleman. He wouldn’t hit a girl. It’s two on one.”

“I fight dirty!” Cammie said.

“So do we!” Moira said.

Everyone chuckled. The whole thing made me feel really good about this round. Someone was going to lose, and I’d feel bad about that whether it was them or us, but at least we were going into it with the right attitude, and no one was hung up on winning at all costs.

This sort of thing was what high school Debate was supposed to be about: dedicated people arguing their points with respect for their opponent and trying to do the best job they could. No matter who won from here on out, the winners would reflect that, and that mattered to me. We weren’t going to get a couple of technical specialists who won because they talked faster or knew how to incite confusion to their advantage.

The round itself was everything I expected. We went affirmative this round, which likely saved Laura and Moira a decision on whether to change cases. Without thinking about it, we went right into our eyewitness testimony case.

They did a great job attacking it; we did a great job defending it. As before, I think I’d have given us the edge at the end, but it was very close. Not that they would tell us if it was 2-1 or 3-0, but I expected a very close vote.

Either team deserved to be in finals, but then Natalie and Brenda did, too, and so did Mike and Steve. Two teams wouldn’t be. That’s just how things work.

We hugged after the round. After the hugs, Moira hummed ‘Psycho’ music and mimed knifing Cammie in the back, which got everyone in the room laughing. Brave move in front of the judges, maybe, but even talking to the judges had been brave.

In our defense, they’d talked to us first.

Everyone was on pins and needles waiting for finals breaks. Perhaps because it was our last, guaranteed, I think everyone felt it the most acutely. Any loss in eliminations would have been our last, of course, but this was it. Whether we made finals or not, we would never again sit around waiting for the postings to come out.

When they came out, the breaks turned out to be everything we could have hoped for — and what we had at least a reasonable argument to having been justified in expecting, based on ToC. That means everyone broke.

I think Meg and Steffie had convinced themselves that someone was going to miss, judging from their reactions. That was, of course, the safe choice.

We were likely not the only program here to have every person they brought in finals, but that’s because some only brought one or two people. No other program had anyone in the finals of every event, nor did any state but Texas.

For this one, we felt justified in getting together in a big group hug and bouncing up and down a bit. Too much celebrating would be poor sportsmanship, but we didn’t cross that line. We were just thrilled, and we had every right to be thrilled. Very few programs had ever managed this.

Even if we all fell on our faces — unlikely! — three of us were national runners-up at minimum, and the rest could say they were among the top eight in the nation their year. That alone says a lot.

Cammie and I would face our long-time frenemies Natalie and Brenda in finals. I’d thought they could get past Mike and Steve, but those two had been impressive, and I could’ve easily seen them winning it all.

Of course, I could’ve seen Moira and Laura winning it all, too. Things happen.

LD didn’t have an all-Texas final. Carla had lost to a guy from Bronx Sci. They didn’t have the same reputation in LD that they did in CX, but LD isn’t open to the sorts of tactics CX is.

CX finals was held in a mid-sized auditorium. Many of the other finals were also in auditorium-style classrooms. There would be sizeable audiences at every event.

We’d gotten lucky, and Angie’s final was only one building over. She was scheduled at the end of her round. Mom and Dad would watch us get started, then head over there. They would come back and catch the end of our round if they could.

As with the previous round, Natalie and Brenda shook our hands, and then we all hugged. That put smiles on the face of the audience, including the three judges who’d already gotten settled. One of the remaining two walked in as we were hugging.

The whole thing seemed fitting. We’d known them for years, and they’d known us for years, too. We’d battled back and forth, and they’d gotten stronger right along with us. Not only that, but we had mutual friends outside of Debate, friends who would be happy no matter who won.

We flipped for affirmative and won. That made me happy — Mom and Dad would get to see me present our affirmative case, which was my chance to show them the polished, oratorical side of my abilities.

The flip side of that — and it was also good — was that I read the case as I always did, except with a little pacing difference at the beginning and end to acknowledge the judges, the audience, and that this was the National finals. I knew how to present this case, and that’s what I did. I wouldn’t have played to Mom and Dad anyway, but this removed any risk of that.

Mom and Dad left after Cammie’s Second Affirmative, which felt like the right timing. They wouldn’t have any idea who won, but I wasn’t confident that they would be the best judges of this round anyway. This was probably going to come down to one or two specific arguments, and without being able to keep a flow of the round, it’d be hard for anyone to figure that out.

Mom and Dad returned just before my First Affirmative Rebuttal, which made me happy. They settled in quietly, and I don’t think they disturbed anyone.

As I was finishing, I had just enough time to say, “This is my last CX Debate round. Thanks to my partner of three years, Cammie Clarke; my coach, Meg Ames; my teammates and friends; my parents, who’ve finally gotten to see me debate; teams like Ms. Kinsler and Ms. Seddle; and thanks to all of the judges over the years.”

Natalie had made a similar statement in her First Negative Rebuttal, and Brenda matched her as she wound up her Second Negative Rebuttal, and then it was Cammie’s turn to speak for the last time in high school debate. In my opinion, she covered everything she needed to, and just a bit more. She closed with, “As with the rest of us, this is my last round. I’ll miss seeing our opponents at tournament after tournament, but I hope we’ll keep seeing them. Thank you to my wonderful partner, to my incredible coach, my teammates and friends, and to my aunt and uncle for standing by me when times got tough.”

She gave a little curtsy, and that was that. We were done.

Cammie and I hugged as the crowd started applauding. Natalie and Brenda hugged, too. Then the two us hugged the two of them.

The crowd quickly quieted, to let the judges confer, and we returned to our seats until they rose, smiled to us, and walked out together. Once they were gone, we got a second, brief round of applause, and then most people left.

It turned out that the Seddles and the Kinslers were here, too, and we had to be introduced to them. They seemed very happy that we were longtime frenemies. Mom and Dad talked to them, too, of course.

I don’t think any of us would’ve said that we were confident as we waited for the final results. Being optimistic about making finals is different from being confident about winning finals, after all.

That said: if anyone was pessimistic about things, they weren’t telling.

Unlike other tournaments, the awards ceremony was a scheduled thing. We all made our way to the largest auditorium on the Trinity campus for the three o’clock ceremony. Seats were plentiful. I think the crowd had thinned out the least of any tournament this year, but I still doubted more than three hundred of us were left, with perhaps one hundred spectators. Some parents had flown in, and they’d gotten some interest from the local community, too.

I had no idea how they’d decided on the order of events, but Extemp came first. We were on pins and needles as fourth went to a guy from Kansas, then third to a guy from Florida, and second to a girl from California. When the director said Amit’s name, we restrained ourselves, just giving him a polite — if enthusiastic — round of applause.

The Kotharis were very enthusiastic, too, and they obviously had help. It wasn’t hard to figure out where they were sitting, and looking that way, I spotted all of the Memorial parents (plus David and Penelope) in a group.

That set the tone for the day. Jaya didn’t win LD, but she lost 3-2. She had two more years to improve on that, and I was fairly certain that she could.