New Trier’s very own speech and debate team was recently featured on CBS News for their outstanding reputation, putting the debate program in the top ten nation-wide.
Alongside Glenbrook South and Glenbrook North, New Trier’s motor mouths have been consistently dominating the debate world. After returning from last weekend’s St. Mark’s Invitational in Houston, New Trier’s speech and debate team looks to prepare for their next tournament only a week away.
New Trier’s top debate duo, Eric Chen and Jack Manchester, lead the 3 New Trier debating pairs through the 6 preliminary rounds at the St. Mark’s Invitational. The team then moved onto the elimination rounds where Chen and Manchester were eliminated. However they hope to step up their game for next weekend’s Round Robin at the University of Michigan.
“All other [New Trier] teams compete at more of a local level but we compete against other debate teams on a national level,” said senior, Eric Chen. New Trier’s debate team regularly travels all over the country to compete against some of the top debaters in the nation.
“Our debate team is above average compared to other schools that don’t have the funding to travel as much or sustain a large team. We’re lucky enough to get to work together and have a big team and great resources,” said senior Alex Kontopoulos. Kontopoulos, paired with senior Jon Sussman, debate policy alongside Chen and Manchester, all of whom will attend this weekend’s Round Robin.
New Trier’s debate team includes four different types of debate, Lincoln-Douglass, Policy, Public Forum, and Congress. As a freshman, aspiring debaters enroll in a class called “Discussion and Debate” where they learn the basic techniques of all of these forms of debate.
Dedicated freshman have the opportunity to commute to the Winnetka campus where they can train with upperclassmen and potentially compete.
Once a sophomore, these novice debaters choose one of the four types of debate in which they will specialize and then enroll in that class. They also meet after school with the rest of the team to research, practice, and collaborate with other members in preparation for their next tournament.

But some debaters don’t feel that people really get what exactly they do in the club. “People rarely understand the sort of work that we put into it, in terms of the research, the practice, and the speech,” said Kontopoulos, who like most other seniors, lectures and teaches the novices in conjunction with the two speech and debate coaches, P.J. Samorian and Aaron Vinson. Vinson and Samorian mentor and help each debater with improving the craft of research and debating.
“Debate is probably the most misunderstood activity at New Trier. A lot of people know that we travel and compete, but they don’t really know why we do or what we do at these tournaments,” said Chen of New Trier’s views of the debate team.
The team’s hard work and feats often go unnoticed, but they hope to change that at this year’s Tournament of Champions on the first weekend of May. Last year, New Trier only managed to send seniors to the event. This year, they hope more kids will be able to go to such a prestigious tournament.