Persisting: an Ode to Seniors
An Ode to Seniors
By Jasmine Stidham, Teacher and Coach at Harvard-Westlake and Assistant Coach at Dartmouth College. Joshua Michael, PhD student at the University of Southern California and coach at Notre Dame, helped edit this article.
I really struggled to write a creative introduction for this article. Part of me wanted to begin with an emotional quote or a sentimental foreword of some kind, but that didn’t feel quite right. So, I’ll just say what most of us are thinking: This sucks. We’re quarantined inside our homes, schools continue to send emails containing vague updates on how they plan to monitor the situation, and our newsfeeds are saturated with Trump tweets and celebrities using TikTok for the first time. Students are expected to continue as if nothing has changed, and teachers everywhere are struggling to figure out how to unmute their mics on Zoom. This time of transition to online course instruction and knowledge that we might not see our classes again this semester, has left coaches and debaters with little time for self-reflection.
This article was written to provide our community with a brief moment to just, breathe. I do not possess all of the answers as to what will happen next season, but I do know that many students are feeling sadness, anger, and frustration in this current moment. I believe some of those feelings stem from the fact that everything happened so fast. One day we were discussing the long shot possibility of tournament cancellations, and suddenly, the entire nation came to a complete stop. In the midst of all the global chaos, a seemingly small group of kids was hit particularly hard. One by one, tournaments began to cancel, and students could see their season disappear right before their eyes. It didn’t feel real. There would be no NDCA, no brick and mortar TOC, no state championships, and potentially no NSDA tournament. With the exception of a few online alternatives, everything was cancelled.
As a coach, I was devastated. So many thoughts raced through my mind: How do I tell my kids? Can I meet with them in person? Is that still allowed under quarantine rules? Do I really have to break this news to them via Slack? What do I tell my seniors? I have never been in such a position before. While I was obviously concerned for all debaters impacted by the news, my heart especially hurt for seniors. Your final tournaments were taken away from you due to tragic circumstances beyond the community’s control, and there aren’t enough eloquent words to describe that pain. No matter the tournament, it still mattered to you. It mattered because you worked for it; it mattered because you earned it. You invested time, energy, and resources into reaching a goal that meant something to you.
A debater’s senior year is significant for various reasons. You are constantly battling senioritis, applying to colleges, contemplating the prospect of debating in college, all while trying to leave your mark on the debate community. It is your final chance to reach certain benchmarks, win that tournament, achieve this qualification, or get your soul back from a rival. Many seniors set goals at the beginning of their final season and work tirelessly to see them through. That is why certain losses hurt more than others when you are a senior. It also explains why the unexpected string of tournament cancellations felt like such a blow to senior debaters. These emotions exceed feeling upset that you did not get the chance to break new in doubles or get the opportunity to read that new disad in your Dropbox; it’s knowing that you could have done everything in your power to prepare for your final tournament, and it still would not have changed the inevitable.
The community’s reaction to tournament cancellations varied, as did individual responses from debaters. Anger, frustration, anxiety, and sadness were prevalent. Above all, I felt a profound sense of loss. It was never just about winning or losing; it was about community. Our final tournaments are a chance to see our friends from other schools, start beef with our rivals (love you Chris Randall), and experience one last weekend hunkered down in a hotel conference room with our teammates. Kristen Lowe, coach at Dartmouth College, articulates this feeling better than I ever could:
Some of us lose because of the panel, some of us lose because of the flip, some of us lose because of the case neg that our teammate was too busy with midterms to finish, and some of us lose because we never had the shot that someone with more time, more money, and more opportunity had. The coaching advice I offer every student at every chance I’m given is to always prepare in a way they are proud of at all costs. At the end of the day, it will not be about the loss – it ends up being the things you would have, could have, and should have done differently to control the variables and the time you spend wishing that you had. And if you had the great foresight and discipline to do all those things right, you just might encounter the uncomfortable truth that it was never just those things for any of us.
It is the seeding, the quality of sleep, the stomach pain we had in the octas, and temperature of the air, and in simpler words – chance. The nature of our activity is that we are all the victims of a million uncontrollables just hoping that if we sacrifice enough, we don’t have to be. Whether because of the coronavirus or the coin flip, every team except for one has to endure a conclusion to their career that they neither wanted nor foresaw. It is not the victory or the inability to guarantee it that is at stake. Because that is never what it was about either.
For the seniors who wanted nothing more than their final round, I hear you. For the seniors who really wanted to see their friends one last time, I hear you, too. No matter what you are feeling right now, you should know that your impact in this community will forever be felt even in the absence of a final tournament.
This article is titled “An Ode to Seniors,” because all of you deserve closure and appreciation for your dedication to this activity. While this technically does not meet T: Ode, it still feels somewhat poetic from a coach’s perspective. You might not have been able to attend the TOC, but you were still a fierce team leader. You could not go undefeated at NDCA like you planned, but an eager novice saw one of your debates online and thought you were the best debater they have ever seen. You did not get a chance to win your state championship, but everyone knew you were the team to beat and spent hours preparing to debate you. You barely missed out on qualifying for nationals this year, but your coach is still incredibly proud of your work ethic and could not imagine the team without you. Your coach knows how much you invested in debate and wants to sincerely thank you for your perseverance, commitment, and genuine love for this community. To the class of 2020, thank you.
[i] Debate Musings, 3-10-2020, "Closure in the Absence of the NDT," https://www.debatemusings.org/home/closure-in-the-absence-of-the-ndt