UMKC Debate Team
UMKC Debate Finishes Strong at the National Debate Tournament!
4/3/2007
The UMKC team of Malcolm Gordon and Amy Foster finished as the runner-up at the National Debate Tournament in Dallas over the weekend.
The National Debate Tournament (NDT) hosts the 78 best debate teams in the US. Schools that attend include academic powerhouses like Harvard, Dartmouth, Emory, Bard, Cal-Berkeley, Northwestern, Georgetown, as well as teams from a great deal of other public and private universities. The UMKC team of senior Amy Foster and senior Malcolm Gordon qualified through the First Round At Large process, which is the first time that UMKC Debate has qualified a team through this process. It means that our performance throughout the year qualified us as one of the top 16 teams in the country.
Once at the tournament they competed in 8 preliminary rounds. Malcolm and Amy finished with 7 wins and one loss with wins over Emory (2), Kansas, Wayne State (2), Wake Forest, and Texas. UMKC was the 4th seed into the elimination rounds. This meant that they would receive a bye through the Double Octafinal Round. In the Octafinals, they defeated California Berkeley on a 7-0 decision. In Quarterfinals, they defeated Northwestern on a 5-0 decision. In semifinals, they defeated Wayne State University on a 4-1 decision. In the Championship round, the amazing run ended with a loss to an Emory team, that Malcolm and Amy had previously beaten at the tournament during the preliminary rounds, on a 4-1 decision.
Malcolm Gordon also received individual honors as the 5th overall speaker at the tournament.
While Malcolm and Amy were ranked 15th going into the tournament, it was still considered a long shot for them to be in the final round. It is hard to explain what an exceptional accomplishment a second place finish at the NDT is. Taking a glance at the National Runner-Up trophy, however, starts to put this into perspective. Beside the names of great debaters from Northwestern, Harvard, Georgetown, Berkeley, Emory, and Dartmouth, the names of two debaters from UMKC will forever be engraved.
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