Two years ago today, if you were to ask Evan Liu (10) his thoughts on Speech and Debate, he would’ve said it was “a complete waste of time.”
“I was kind of indoctrinated into it in middle school because I went to a private school [The Cambridge School] that was really good at debate,” Liu said. “For all of eighth grade, I thought debate was a complete waste of time. Then for the beginning of ninth grade, I thought it was really stupid too. [It was] up until my first tournament — that’s when I started actually liking it.”
In his ninth-grade year, Liu attended the San Diego Imperial Valley Speech League 1A tournament as a part of The Cambridge School’s Speech and Debate class curriculum. Holding no belief he could do well, Liu went in with zero expectations, only to be shocked after winning three out of the four debate rounds he competed in; after that, he was hooked.
“I remember at the time, I told my friends I’d be surprised if I could win one [round],” Liu said. “It was a pretty negative attitude going into it, which I regret, but I’m glad that during the tournament I gave it my all.”
Liu attributes this success to his Speech and Debate coach’s teachings: that above all else, always value logic.
“The other teams that we went up against, some of them were actually better speakers than us, but their cases — their arguments — weren’t as good,” Liu said. “The way that our coach taught us, we didn’t need to be the most fluent speakers to actually win rounds. Now my philosophy with debate is just prioritize logic first because I’m not the best speaker. I stutter a lot when I’m nervous. But at the end of the day, I think if the arguments are good and I can beat my opponents in that way, then it’ll be fun.”
After the success at his first tournament, Liu found himself desiring to improve his speech and debate skills by attending as many tournaments as possible and striving to become well-informed in all subjects.
“Whenever I’m exposed to a new idea, I’m always thinking about statistics and quantified impacts,” Liu said. “The reason why is because in debate, it’s really hard to win if you don’t have some number that accompanies your argument and your impact because you can’t weigh two sides if you don’t have a quantitative measure. So, this habit of thinking about quantifiable evidence has translated into other things I’m passionate [about like] politics because I really prioritize empirics now and statistics.”
Liu has attended seven Speech and Debate tournaments over the past year. He won second place at this year’s speech opener and an award at the league 1A and 2A tournaments for winning three out of four of his debates.
According to Liu, although winning awards is fun, he’s found even more reward in getting to pursue his passion. Liu said that he came to this realization on the car ride home from his most recent speech tournament, Bargain Belt, Sunday.
“I learned it’s really not a good mindset to go into tournaments with the expectation, ‘I have to win an award’ because [on Sunday], when I didn’t make finals, I was really sad,” Liu said. “Overall, I think getting those results, getting placed, that does motivate me a lot. But the other more reliable factor is that Speech and Debate is my passion and I love the subject and the community around it. I think that’s what keeps me going more than those immediate rewards.”
