Debate--my sole extra-curricular activity for six years. Its a cult, but one we love.

Actually, that's not entirely true - I got out. It took eight years, but I can honestly say that right now I'm done with debate. They keep trying to drag me back (I just got a call from the folks at Ohio State, asking me to be an assistant coach for them for the rest of the year), but let's be honest: as much as I would love to go back and help, I don't have the time. I've moved on, and other parts of my life are far more important to me right now (Geez it feels good to type that...)

I was in debate for eight years overall. Two as a competitor in high school (we didn't form a team until my Junior year), four as a competitor in college, and then two as a coach of an area high school team. It was a great activity, and one I'm very glad to have been involved with. Its also something I'm glad I can talk about in the past tense. :-)

I got involved in debate because the topic my junior year was space exploration. My best frined Bill Rand and I were space buffs - we knew more about the space program than just about anybody we knew. It was a perfect fit! Of course, after that year the topic changed (to homeless policy) but it was too late. We were hooked. (as an aside - Bill is still hooked. He's on Michigan State's debate team to this day and probably will stay involved for long after I'm out)

Debate gave us a great excuse to take trips - to the library, to area high schools, around the state of Ohio. It wasn't until I got to college, though, that I realized how much fun travelling could be. At Ohio State we went to tournaments all over the northeast US, including:
Lincoln, Nebraska
Boston, Massachusetts
Bowling Green, Kentucky (don't laugh, it was a great trip!)
Indianapolis, Indiana
Ypsilanti, Michigan (go ahead an laugh, this one was a hell-hole...)

Coaching was interesting too - I got to go to Philadelphia (spent hours in the emergency room after one of the kids decided to fall down a flight of steps...), Cincinnati, and a whole bunch of high schools in Ohio (most of which were horribly designed - sorry, that's an architecture comment ;-)

Check below for some links that cover debate - somewhat. Just be sure to check out the image at the bottom; that was the back page to my debate case my senior year in college. I proposed to give the UN a standing army, and that picture was part of an "Uncle Boutros wants YOU!" poster... :-)

Semi-Official Thomas Worthington Speech & Debate Page
: I just took these pages down, since I'm no longer the coach. Follow the link if you like, but there's just about nothing there anymore...:-)

Debate Central
All sorts of goodies for different forms of debate

Wayne State University's Forensics Page
This is a good jump point to other teams' pages, and general research aids.

My savior!
He may look weird, but I know more about him than any other world leader, thanks to this event.

Updated 02/10/99

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