Gabe Rosenberg and Geoff Swenson are two of the best undergraduate parliamentary debaters in the country.
You may not have heard about it in the dining hall or (ahem) read about it in the S&B, but in the last debate tournament of their undergraduate careers this March, the pair placed third of 268 teams at the National Parliamentary Debate Association’s tournament in Portland, Ore.
That was Swenson and Rosenberg’s third meet of the year. Most debate teams, they said, attend a tourney almost every weekend. But without such experience or substantial recognition in the debate culture, the pair has consistently placed near the top of their fields in the three years they’ve debated together.
What’s the secret?
“We don’t really know fear,” said Rosenberg. “Because we’re more ignorant. They don’t know who we are, but we don’t know who they are.”
Grinnell’s Debating Union is Grinnell’s oldest student organization and fields the only parliamentary debate teams in Iowa. It’s advised by Dan Bunnell, a teacher at Montezuma High School, but he mostly focuses on the administrative work; Swenson and Rosenberg have essentially coached themselves for four years, by reading books and discussing successes and errors after each match.
Independence might be part of the pair’s edge, too, they said.
“When people are overcoached,” said Rosenberg, “If you take away their coaching, which can happen for any number of reasons … people are absolutely panicked. It’s given us a real gritty sort of approach to debate.”
The pair said they’ve always tried to focus more on content than on form. It’s a risky style that tends either to yield the big prizes or send them home empty-handed. But they haven’t minded that.
“Gabe and I always joke that if we’re getting speaker awards, we’re doing something wrong,” said Swenson.
The two recall one particularly dramatic debate last year, when they lost the final round of a tournament by trying to convince the judges not to select a winner. They had been assigned to argue against the proposition that debate, by its nature, fosters unethical behavior. So they decided to maintain that debate didn’t have to be competitive. The judges didn’t buy it, and the pair’s opponents took home first prize.
And that, they said, was okay. It’s all about process. “It’s been tremendously educational,” Rosenberg said, both for the pair and for the team’s other members, who will continue to attend tournaments next year. “Every dollar that the institution spends on intercollegiate debate will be returned tenfold in more articulate, intelligent, analytically sound Grinnellians.”
—Michael Andersen