Union University’s debate team won the International Public Debate Association’s national championship tournament that took place April 8-11 at Abilene Christian University.
Union debate was named the season-long champion—adding together all of their tournaments throughout the year—for the third year in a row and the national champion for the second year in a row.
The team competed against almost 200 teams and over 1,000 individuals throughout their season, winning 207 awards in total.
Cameron Champine, freshman political science and communication studies major, won first place in the novice division of the tournament, and Seth Blair, freshman history major, won first-place novice speaker.
“It meant a lot to me to win surrounded by a great team of people who really helped me and to be around all my friends,” Champine said. “Part of it that’s super cool is that your individual success is just magnified by the team’s success. If you’re a good debater or a good prepper, you’re gonna become even better just from having a really great team and being surrounded by a really great group of people.”
Rebekah Whitaker, assistant professor of communication arts and director of debate, has been coaching the team for three years. Whitaker attributed the success of the team to a focus on the university’s core values.
“Being more focused on the values, so being Christ-centered. Making sure that how we communicate honors God and doesn’t undermine our Christian witness, making sure that we’re loving our neighbor well as a way of being people-focused, communicating gracefully and mercifully in-round and in-between rounds with our opponents,” Whitaker said.
“I think the dedication to being excellence-driven and how each person does work in-between tournaments to being good stewards of this opportunity, to be good stewards of the support, to good stewards of the talents and gifts that God has given them and all of that contributes to us being future-directed,” Whitaker said. “Being focused on those things as opposed to being focused on winning for the sake of winning is the secret to our success.”
The team also won the Scholastic Sweepstakes and Founders awards for the national tournament as well as for the season, and they won first-place novice squad for the season.
“Caring more about others as opposed to caring more about trophies makes all the difference,” Whitaker said.
For more information on the debate team visit www.uu.edu/org/debate/.
