A Tale of Two Academic Teams

Chapter 9: Speech and Debate on Mental Health

Later that day, Sadie meets with Qian at the end of football practice. Her own feelings of helplessness and despair might drive her insane without wanting it, Qian muses while the meeting starts, alone with Sadie.

"I feel so stressed out and I feel out of my depth. I need help but I'm not getting it for about two weeks or so" Sadie then confides to Qian.

"I get Grapevine ground you into dust as a debater because you finished the tournament with a losing record. I trust you understand that someone has to have a losing record" Qian explains to her.

"Yes, Qian, be it quiz bowl or debating. But when you aim for the Dukes, Vanderbilts of this world, if you pick debates and quiz bowl, you'd better perform strongly in both. LSU might be fine with regular attendance of tournaments in just one of these only, but Duke, Vanderbilt and the like are a whole other kind of beast"

"Ideally what would you want?"

"Compete in either ToC or NSDA Nationals this season, since we're already qualified for the HSNCT. But it's not with losing records at major inter-state tournaments that I'll get to compete at either one. If I attend LSU, my life might not necessarily be over, but there are definitely doors that will be closed to me"

"It seems like debate is stressing you out more than quiz bowl. Yes, I know about how you went to the semifinals at state championships last season, and all that..."

"I always feel like a fool around my debate teammates these days. Not even dating you would make me feel less of a fool. Right now, I don't feel like I am a contender for the state championship title. As it is now, even the neighboring parish can win against us"

"And?"

"That would be even more embarrassing to me because, for as long as I've known about this inter-parish rivalry, they are more athletics-focused while we are more academics-focused. They were crushed against us in debates..."

"The neighboring parish doesn't attend inter-state debate tournaments to my knowledge!" Qian protests, upon hearing the description of how she feels about her gameplay.

"Tabroom is very difficult to get results by school from unless you know exactly which tournaments they attend, and what events they entered. It's not like NAQT, where you can get results by school much more readily" Sadie explains to him.

Maybe, maybe I can get the neighboring parish's public forum pair to play a practice round against us! They might not have entered NSDA-State, and performed poorly at LHSSL-State, but if we can't even beat the neighboring parish, I may as well quit debate, here and now! And then move on to a practice round against DCC later this week, with the same stipulation, Sadie muses, believing a victory against the neighboring parish would be the first baby step, and DCC the next baby step.

"The thing is, if we can't defeat the neighboring parish, there's no way we can win NSDA-State or obtain ToC bids. Even if we suppose the neighboring parish actually sticks to local tournaments"

"One more thing: what do you think of me playing middle linebacker last Friday?" Qian asks Sadie, days after the football game.

"Sometimes you try to prevent a rushing play, sometimes you try to catch an opposing pass. You might not be the best linebacker in the world, but you're still a starter as a LB" Sadie then tells Qian.

"I know I don't have a chance to play football in college, but I'm OK with that honestly"

"That said, when you play in inter-state debate tournaments, every flaw can be used against you. And this means more sources of anxiety, more feeling you need to have the perfect everything to win any given round: arguments, speeches, ATs (answers to), notes, questions and answers in crossfires, evidence to back up these things, not to mention speech delivery. This means you can play very well and still lose a round on one small thing"