In sports, a team that wins titles consistently is often referred to as a dynasty. There is a team at Point Loma Nazarene University that is the midst of its own dynasty. However, its challenges are fought, not with balls and bats and agility, but with intellect and words. Its battlegrounds are not fields or courts, but stages and podiums.
Recently, PLNU’s forensics program enjoyed its most celebrated showing ever at the National Parliamentary Debate Association (NPDA) National Championships. The annual tournament, which is considered to be the most important tournament of the year by most in the activity, was hosted by The Colorado College in Colorado Springs from March 22-25.
The PLNU team won Second Place in the highly competitive Tournament Sweepstakes race, which compares the collective team performances of each of the college and university programs competing at the tournament. Additionally, the PLNU team earned enough points throughout the entire year of competition to be declared the NPDA yearlong season sweepstakes National Champions for the 2006-07 season. They edged out perennial powerhouse Western Kentucky University and hundreds of other programs like UCLA, Cal-Berkeley, the Air Force Academy, Notre Dame and the University of Florida.
Point Loma senior debaters Tim Kamermayer and Griffith Vertican won First Place in the NPDA National Championship Tournament team title against approximately 240 of the best teams in the nation. They were the only undefeated (8-0) team through the eight preliminary rounds of the tournament, earning the top seed for the elimination bracket. Kamermayer and Vertican went on to win each of their next seven elimination rounds, including the final round where they debated against Creighton University and won a split decision (5-4) in a hard fought debate on resurrecting one of President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society programs. It was a shining moment for these two young men, for the PLNU debate team and the university as a whole.
http://cas.bethel.edu/dept/comm/npda/nats2007.html
The yearlong sweepstakes national title was decided by calculating the school’s top four tournaments of the year, based upon how the school’s top four teams performed in each tournament, compared to every other school’s top four tournaments throughout the nation. Point Loma also won this same season sweepstakes national championship award in back-to-back years, in 2002-03 and 2003-04.
http://cas.bethel.edu/dept/comm/npda/stats/schools?season=2006-2007&sort=byrank
“I am extremely proud of all the debaters on our team and they deserve these incredible honors. They have been working extremely hard throughout the entire year, when few if any would have given us much of a chance at achieving such an honor,” said Dr. Skip Rutledge, director of the Forensics program at PLNU. “What pleases me most as a coach is seeing the realization in the eyes of the students that they are capable of great things if they are only willing to work hard enough to accomplish them. Further, I know that they can then take these life empowering skills that they learn in this exiting game environment and make substantive improvements in the world around them. The thrills and skills don't simply disappear when the game of intercollegiate debate ends upon their graduation. To the contrary, that is the beginning of an even more exciting environment upon which they can focus their skills and abilities.”
Several PLNU debaters won top speaker awards, including Kamermayer (4th Place, one point behind the first-place speaker) and Joel Day (19th). Honorable mention also went to Vertican (28th).
Winning four NPDA national titles in the last five years speaks volumes about the success of the PLNU debate program and its establishment as one of the best in the country. In fact, of the 11 local, regional and national debate tournaments that were entered this year, PLNU won First Place Sweepstakes in seven of them, including the most recent second place tournament sweepstakes finish at NPDA Nationals. Rutledge, his staff and his debaters deserve credit for the many hours of hard work they have put in, in an effort to give the students this forum, and to help establish the program on a national level.
Eric Yates
Media Relations Officer
(619) 849-7186
eyates@pointloma.edu