Debate Team Launches Trial Year with High Hopes

Although COVID-19 has made extracurricular clubs and activities difficult to participate in or completely canceled all together, the new debate team will be conducting a trial team this year in hopes of becoming an official team starting next school year.

The debate team organizer and sophomore Aryan Kalluvila contacted athletic director Scott Helms in hopes of starting up the team.

Kalluvila noticed that HUHS offers students a Forensics club however no type of debate team or club was available. “Debate in my opinion is just a little bit more fun,” Kalluvila said.

Kalluvila said he’d like to see the team get their feet wet with this being their first year. He’d like the team to gain new experiences as well. “I hope to spectate and watch how others debate and learn from them,” Kalluvila said.

Team member Jada Erickson believes being a part of the team will give her better strategies on how to debate and make her more comfortable when it comes to public speaking.

“I applied [to join] because I thought it would be a really fun club,” Erickson said. “I thought it would be a great way to learn to back up my arguments so I don’t sound like a broken record.”

She believes any student at HUHS that is hard working and wants to learn should consider joining the team.

Team member Calais Roemer thinks that anyone interested in practicing speaking or preparing topics should consider joining. “[The debate team] could be good practice for anyone going into a profession that needs public speaking or a lot of preparation because your speech will need to be prepared and researched,” Roemer said.

Due to the team starting during COVID the team has been limited to only eight team members. Kalluvila expects next year to allow 15 members.

“I’m super excited to be a part of the team. It’s really cool to know that I was chosen out of all the people who applied,” Erickson said.

Kalluvila said that he got a good amount of interest when it came to receiving applications.

The team also has a minimum 3.2 GPA requirement due to debate being an academic competition.

“Debate is very structured. It’s not like the general debates that you see in the lunchroom. It’s quite structured and has a lot more rules than what you would expect,” Kalluvila said.

Hartford’s debate team will be competing against 15 other schools this year, however this year debate tournaments and meetings will be held virtually because of COVID concerns.

“Unfortunately this year it’ll be harder to meet people, but generally if you go to the tournaments you meet people you make friends, lifelong friendships often times,” Kalluvila said.

When Roemer found out that tournaments would be held virtually she said she almost felt as if she did not want to even join anymore. However Roemer does understand that the purpose of virtual is to keep everyone healthy.

“[Virtual debates] will definitely be harder,” Roemer said. “I've always liked in person competitions where you get to meet new people and go to new places, but this way everyone will be safe.”

Team members are asked to participate in at least three of the seven tournaments this year. The first tournament for the team will be the MUHS Hilltopper Classic held on Dec. 5. Tournaments typically will be held on Thursdays.