A Tale of Two Academic Teams

Chapter 7: Detroit Cold Calling

Sadie mostly split the summer between working at an elementary school as a social studies teaching assistant for summer school kids, as did a number of academic team players, and training for quiz bowl.

Only a week into the school year, DCC's public forum team is unsatisfied with the coaching staff and begins to look for options elsewhere. Suffice to say that the debate community in the greater Detroit region was very limited and none of the parents of the DCC public forum players knew anyone that could help them. They are exploring other options regarding debating.

"Our debate coach just doesn't cut it!" Francis complains to his dad.

"I'm not about to pull you out of Catholic Central just for better debate coaching! Other debate-playing schools in this region are very expensive and they aren't worth the extra costs" Francis' father comments to his son.

"I don't think any of this state's college debaters would be willing to coach us, even remotely" Francis retorts, while he struggles to think of who could help them.

"Try other people you know around the circuit"

"Most people around the circuit I could know are our direct rivals. Loyola, Detroit Country Day, Notre Dame Prep, Saline, to name the main ones. Maybe my teammate would know someone" Francis then turns to his cellphone. "David, do you know someone that can help us with debating? I am out of options!" Francis texts his teammate.

Everyone else I could possibly know that could help us, and don't play in the same circuit, are much more elitist than we are! Maybe I am just unlucky, but then again it's time to pull out the contact information my former teammate gave me last season! David muses while he wonders whether the Venomous Agendas were worth considering. He told me about how the Venomous Agendas were much stronger on the debate floor than we were. And she is a fantastic quiz bowl player, too! "Try Sadie Naath; she might play for a school on the other side of the country, but she is the only one I know that feels nice enough to be worth trying to get for a coach"

"My teammate has found a potential coach for us in debating. She might be at the other end of the country and hence everything will happen online, but she's a contender for her home state's championship. His family is willing to foot half the bill for her to coach us" Francis tells his parents.

Thank God for the coach deciding not to have us attend these inter-state tournaments like the one I attended last year, because DCC was blown out at Isidore Newman Invitational. 1-5 in varsity PF and novice LD, 0-6 in varsity policy, 2-4 in varsity LD, and I don't even want to think about the remainder, David muses upon seeing DCC's schedule for the season, and where he met Sadie for the first time.

"Before we can decide, we would like to schedule an online meeting with her" Francis' father tells his son.

Thursday night arrives, and Sadie's parents are out of the home. The online meeting with the DCC pair begins with their respective parents introducing themselves, but only one of the two players knowing who she is.

"I'm Francis"

"I'm David"

"I'm Sadie, nice to meet you"

"I remember you, Sadie: we lost that round against you... we were so focused on the North Korean viewpoint!" David exclaims while contemplating how things will change with her as a coach.

"What experience does your teammate have of debate tournaments?" Sadie asks, wanting to know where they stand.

"I started debating because we needed a second speaker to play with so that, when the original speaker was healthy again, Lance could finish the season" Francis explains his debating experience to Sadie. From January onwards we had two public forum pairs.