Utah State Debate Team

LOGAN, Utah - Utah State University (USU) has a team that is turning heads around the country, but gets little attention back at home. The USU Debate team this year was comprised of eleven people, one amazing coach and limited founds.

Utah State is in the Northwest Forensic Conference, over the course of a season they will compete against a variety of schools and travel across the west. This year the team traveled to Idaho, Wyoming, Oregon and Washington State for different competitions each time making a good impression. Other teams fear and praise USU; coaches enjoy the team for being hard working, competitive, knowledgeable and respectable. Challengers fear some of their competitors from USU but know they will have good and challenging rounds.

Majority of Universities fund their debate teams, their coaches get paid, their members get scholarships, all traveling is paid for and all fee’s for competitions are paid for. At USU they are lucky they have a coach that loves his work and is dedicated to his students. Dr. Tom Worthen pays for basically everything, with minimal help from the school, and members don’t have to pay anything. Worthen has been coaching for 30 years at different universities and has been at USU for five years. Most teams have numbers ranging from ten to forty; USU had 11 team members this year. Worthen always says “Our team is quality not quantity.” He couldn’t be more right.

The most recent competition was in Bellingham Washington at Western Washington University. This is the competition everyone prepares for; it is the final conference tournament and the last tournament before nationals. Competition is high; competitors have been practicing all year on their speech’s and debate skills. Two days of intense competition, hoping you won your debate rounds and praying you won’t mess up on your speech. Third day is finals, everyone that came out as the best compete a few more times. Results are in; USU comes in on top once again. Since it is the end of the season conference champions are awarded for doing the best all season. USU was awarded the highest award in the conference, being honored as a Gold Metal School. A dedicated coach and dedicated students will strive for the same honor next year, as for now this year was a major success.