Chapter 21: Planning for Success

Friday, July 29, 1983

I wore my suit today, albeit with a red bowtie and a blue striped shirt. It was, as Cammie said, possibly a preview for the group picture. She’d gone with a nice green dress that wasn’t too formal but was well beyond what she’d worn the rest of the time.

Thinking about it, neither Cammie nor I had ever doubted that we’d make semifinals. Perhaps that’s why we were there, although I’m sure some other kids thought they’d make it and failed.

It wouldn’t surprise me if that assurance tripped us up at some point this year, but it also wouldn’t surprise me if we sailed through. Perhaps the trick was to be confident without being arrogant about it. We knew we had to put in the work every round, and nothing was guaranteed, but we expected that if we put in the work, we would go very far into every tournament.

No one won them all, not ever, not the best teams to ever compete. We wouldn’t, either. If nothing else, I expected some of the other Memorial teams to be gunning for us, but that had its own bit of arrogance.

In any case, we were guaranteed one round today. The second? It’d depend on how we did.

Jas, Angie, and Paige wished Cammie and me luck, and we, in turn, said ‘Break a leg!’ which made them grin and nod.

We got to our room early as usual. It was a fairly large lecture hall, and people filtered in over the next few minutes. Not Grandmother and Professor Berman. Perhaps they would just hope we’d made finals.

We started getting ready and had our things set up when Blaine and Carlo came in. We rose as they come over.

I said, “Hi, I’m Steve.”

“Blaine,” he said, and shook my hand.

Meanwhile, Cammie was doing the same with Carlo.

The judges came in as we were introducing ourselves. I’d figured we’d have three, given the tournament.

“Thanks for being on time,” Dan said. He’d taught the Evidence Organization class. The other two judges were Larry and Sherri Wells.

“You’re welcome,” we all said. To me, there wasn’t a question. Of course, we would be on time. Why in the world wouldn’t you be? We’d been here five weeks. We should know where everything is, and it was semifinals.

We wound up with perhaps forty kids watching the round, which made it one of the largest crowds we’d debated in front of. That it wasn’t the largest might be an advantage, depending on Blaine and Carlo’s experience. They certainly seemed to be at least noticing the crowd.

Laura took a seat in the front row — it certainly helped let her stretch her leg — and waved, with a little smile. I waved back, and so did Cammie. Cammie gave me a hard-to-read look but then smiled and nodded. I was pretty sure she’d forgiven Laura for nearly getting me killed, particularly since it was clear Laura hadn’t intended to injure me. Hurt me, yes — there was the slap — but that was almost forgotten by now.

We drew negative, which was fine by me. Carlo was their first affirmative and started into their case. I wasn’t surprised to hear another Exclusionary Rule case, since they’d been fairly popular, but I was surprised that it didn’t seem all that much better than the one we’d just heard yesterday.

They did a better job on topicality, but I still felt like they were really skirting the issue, just more deftly. They didn’t do all that much better on some of the more direct potential impacts (increased illegal searches with the goal of incarcerating people at whatever cost, increased overhead costs for police departments, and so forth).

The feedback from the judges was pretty helpful. Sherri asked us if we’d seen this case recently, and we said that we had. She said that it felt like it — that we were very well prepared to play whack-a-mole with their arguments. Both teams got praise for clarity and staying calm under pressure.

Even with the balanced feedback, I’d continued to feel confident. When they finally announced the winners, it turned out I’d been right in that confidence. We won 3-0.

The crowd left, and we shook hands with Blaine and Carlo again.

“That was a great round,” Blaine said. “Easily the toughest we had here.”

Cammie smiled. “Thanks! You guys were tough.”

“Your program has really jumped up,” Carlo said. “Everyone’s noticed that. What happened?”

I shrugged. “Right people, right time. We had some really good teams, and added some more, and ... everything just came together. Part of it ... okay, a lot of it ... is the people. The way our district does grade points, it’ll hurt your GPA to take Debate, so a lot of top people don’t. We’ve had a unique mix of people who, for whatever reason, just don’t care.”

Cammie grinned. “Yeah. He can talk. He’d be valedictorian if not for Debate.”

“Nah,” I said. “Drama.”

“Well ... yeah.”

“I’d noticed some of you do both,” Carlo said. “We don’t do that. You’re one or the other.”

“Another new thing,” I said. “The two programs just got close, and people wanted to dabble. I do Humorous Interp. My girlfriend is mostly in Drama but does Extemp. My sister is in Drama here but will be doing CX in the fall, plus Drama.”

“I just do Debate-side stuff,” Cammie said. “It’s fun watching the others, though.”

“Coming back to Grapevine?” Blaine said. “We’re hosting again. We don’t hold a tournament every year, but more often than not. It’ll be a ToC qualifier again.”

I shrugged. “Meg plays our schedule close to the vest, sometimes. I have no idea. I’ll be looking for bids in Humorous and Extemp if I come.”

“Not CX?”

“We’re pre-qualified,” Cammie said. “We made it to semis last year.”

“Wow! No wonder that was a tough round!” Carlo said.

Cammie shrugged, smiling. “You still have to do them one at a time. We lost in semis at State to a really good Churchill team, who weren’t nearly as good when our teammates debated them in finals. Sometimes that’s just how it goes. Flip that around and we’re in finals against Lizzie and Janet and would’ve been at Nationals.”

“Lizzie and Janet? Those are the girls at the heart of that prom story, right?” Blaine said.

Cammie nodded. “Yeah. They just graduated.”

“That whole thing was nuts! I mean, personally I’m glad that it worked out. It’s just ... weird ... not only seeing that happen in Houston, but also having debaters at the core of a story like that. I wouldn’t be surprised if that winds up in the UIL newsletter or even the National Forensic League newsletter, just because it’s a pro-Debate sort of story.”

Cammie rolled her eyes. “Steve doesn’t need more press coverage!”

The others hadn’t broken a leg yet. Their performance was still yet to come. They were thrilled that we’d won and wished us luck in finals. The Glenbrook North team, Ava Benedict and Paul Kimball, had beaten Owen and Vincent, so we’d be debating them in the afternoon. Cammie was both happy that another girl would be in finals and a bit miffed that it was Ava. I gathered there was some bad blood. Apparently, Jas, Angie, and Paige all knew her and agreed. From Angie’s body language, I doubted it was some sort of first-life resonance.

We got back to the auditorium early, of course, and got set up. I gave Northwestern credit. They’d set the tables much more how I liked for this sort of round: tables in a fairly tight ‘V’, not quite parallel, with the lectern at the foot of the tables, back away from the stage. Whoever was speaking could see the other debaters, just as you would in almost any other round.

Even then, it was a distraction. Normally you just stood where you were, and your partner could hand you cards easily. Here, they’d have to scoot over, at least changing sides of the table and maybe getting up. A lot of teams relied on having each partner pulling evidence ‘on the fly’ while the other was speaking. That saved a lot of prep time, which could be invaluable when you really needed it.

Many finals would look more like this, though, and it was our mission to be in the finals. More practice was always welcome.

I tried to get the scoop on Ava but failed. Cammie was reticent, saying she’d tell me after the round and that she just wanted me to be myself. I shrugged and went with it.

We introduced ourselves. I got the feeling that they felt like my introduction was redundant — as if I should have assumed they’d know me. Perhaps they had a point, and perhaps not. I would’ve just felt like an egotistical jerk if I’d assumed they knew me.

Laura was again in the front row and again waved to us. Cammie just smiled this time. I figured the two of them would talk. How that talk went might create a major headache for me, or might save me from one.

I saw Grandmother and Professor Berman slip into the auditorium just before starting time. They sat next to a couple of middle-aged people who I didn’t recognize. I suspected they might be friends or parents of the Glenbrook North kids.

By the time Dr. Danforth went to the lectern (a few minutes after the official starting time), we probably had about two-thirds of the Debate kids in attendance. I wondered what the others were doing. I’d always choose to watch finals, but that was me.

Dr. Danforth said, “Welcome, everyone, to our final tournament round. We have two excellent teams for you today. Each team has a single loss over the week — and, no, we’re not telling which rounds each lost. They are the only two teams with only one loss.

“Our first team, Ava Benedict and Paul Kimball, come all the way from Glenbrook.”

That got a laugh.

“Glenbrook North has a long history of success in Debate, including many state championships and recent victories at Nationals and Tournament of Champions. Ava and Paul are hoping to uphold that tradition this year, and seem to be off to an excellent start at it. They were State runners-up last year and lost in octofinals at Nationals.

“Our second team comes from Houston, Texas. Their school is a relative newcomer to major national competition, but has come on very strongly over the past few years. A couple of Memorial debaters that you might have heard of, Janet Collins and Lizzie Vinton...”

That drew a round of applause, though it wasn’t universal. Some of those not applauding simply looked confused, though.

“ ... were runners-up at Nationals this year. The team here today, Cammie Clarke and Steve Marshall...”

I was surprised by a muted round of applause, and I’m sure blushed a bit.

“ ... made it to semifinals at Tournament of Champions and will return this year as automatic invitees.”

He paused, then smiled, and said, “We are particularly happy to have Mister Marshall here, given his run-in with a truck earlier this summer.”

Laura stood and waved.

“Miss Waters?” Dr. Danforth said.

She spoke loudly, facing the audience. “I just wanted to say thank you to Steve. We had a huge misunderstanding and I did something foolish. If not for him risking his life, I’d have a lot more than a sprain.”

I blushed again and said, “I’d do the same anytime. Just ... please don’t make me!”

That got exactly the right mix of laughter and applause. Laura smiled, looking happy with my comment, as she sat back down.

“With that out of the way ... let’s let these two get to it. Miss Benedict, Miss Clarke, please come up. As the team from farther away, Miss Clarke will call the coin toss.”

Cammie called heads, and it was heads. We took affirmative.

As with Indiana, we’d had to decide whether to stick with eyewitness testimony, which had been working for us, or switch cases. We decided to run our polygraph admissibility case, which I’d finished polishing. It both expanded the number of cases where polygraphs could be used but also increased the ways they could be challenged and considerably raised the required qualifications for polygraph examiners, plus essentially made them ‘officers of the court’ and therefore impartial (at least nominally so, but usually in practice as well).

Ava frowned right away when she heard where the case was going. Paul took a few seconds, and then both of them were digging in their evidence cases. Shades of Indiana, definitely. Cammie and I hadn’t tried to investigate our opponents in such detail, partly because of moments like this.

That set the tone for the rest of the round. Ava’s cross-examination was awkward and seemed much more oriented around understanding the case rather than picking holes in it. Paul’s 1NC (First Negative Constructive) was ... unfocused. I got the feeling they’d pulled every card on polygraphs that they had and were trying to get them in. Unfortunately for them, our case wasn’t the ‘classic’ polygraph case (or at least the one that had evolved at this point in the year), which either banned them or championed them. Paul used at least three quotes that bolstered our case.

Cammie made quick work of highlighting that, to shaking heads from Ava and Paul, and then proceeded to cover everything Paul had said, quickly but in detail. She had plenty of time left to preempt several of the major generic arguments, pointing out precedents that suggested that the courts were open to an authority setting guardrails around polygraphs, for instance, thus avoiding the argument that we were somehow ‘usurping the power of the judiciary’ or the like.

Literally every case this year would in some way ‘usurp the power of the judiciary,’ of course, but when you’re negative, that just means you’re arguing that no affirmative can ever win, which is not an unreasonable stand. No one holds you to consistency between that viewpoint and the way you look at things when you’re affirmative, after all.

When we’d finished, we all shook hands again, and then Dr. Danforth came back up. “If you’ll give the judges a few minutes, I have a few notes in the meantime.”

Everyone nodded.

“First, I want to thank both teams for a most entertaining final round. As I said in my opening speech, winning this tournament gets you nothing, yet I’m sure both teams hope to win. The important thing is: how many people in this room believe they’re a better debater now than when they got here?”