Sparring with words: Southridge debate duo invited to national tourney

Lukas Garcia admits he had less-than-noble intentions when, as a freshman, he first attended a meeting of Southridge High School’s speech and debate team.

“It was sort of a joke,” the senior said. “I figured it was just going to be a bunch of nerds.”

But debating for Lukas and fellow senior Charlie Landefeld is anything but a joke now.

After winning second and then first place at two qualifying forensics tournaments in Portland and Tacoma recently, the pair achieved a first for the Southridge program — an invitation to compete in late April at the national Tournament of Champions at the University of Kentucky.

“It raises the ceiling,” said teacher and debate coach Chuck Hamaker-Teals of the invitation.

Trophies, a deeper understanding of the world and some deftness at arguing with parents are the fruits of Lukas’ and Charlie’s years debating with other students in the Mid-Columbia and around the state.

An invitation to nationals was their top goal for their final year in high school, they said. Now everything is about setting up Southridge’s debate team to consistently be at the top nationally, not just in the region or state.

“We’re going to be debating schools that have six coaches, thousands of dollars poured into them,” Lukas said. “I want to show others — like my brother — we can be at that same level.”

Hamaker-Teals has coached Southridge’s speech and debate team since the late 1990s. The program has waxed and waned over the years but currently has 16 members. The Washington Interscholastic Activities Association, or WIAA, groups speech and debate under the term “forensics” and teams compete regionally and statewide at tournaments.

Charlie and Lukas compete in public forum debates, where two teams of two students each make conflicting arguments on a foreign policy issue as a judge evaluates them for the strength of arguments as well as presentation, style and delivery.

The official debate topics change monthly, which means the Southridge team spends dozens of hours researching and reading up on the issues and the arguments on either side.

“It’s very much a mind game, it’s very much a verbal game,” Hamaker-Teals said, adding that the feeling that comes with dealing a decisive blow against another team’s argument “is a rush that’s tough to beat.”

Lukas and Charlie experienced that rush at their two recent wins at Lewis & Clark University and the University of Puget Sound, they said. They were asked whether economic sanctions against Russia had made that country a greater threat to the West. Both times they argued against the use of sanctions, noting evidence that Russia’s military upped its spending following recent sanctions against the global power.

“They’d say Russia can’t spend any more money and we’d show they did and that would put (the other team) in the coffin,” Charlie said.

The seniors don’t know until the day of an event which side they’ll argue on a topic, they said, so they’ve learned to approach each from a neutral viewpoint and instead focus on finding the best arguments to dismantle each side.

Lukas has found himself assessing everyday conversations in the same way, he said.

Charlie applied the value of presentation in debating to his recent interview with U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse’s staff, earning him a nomination to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, he said.

“There were eight people in the room and I was able to make eye contact with each of them without having to look down at notes,” Charlie said.

Lukas and Charlie still have their work cut out for them. Beyond preparing for the tournament, where the 90 best teams in the country will compete, they need to pay their way to get there.

They’ve launched a GoFundMe campaign at bit.ly/SouthridgeDebate to help raise the $4,500 they need to pay for their plane tickets and other expenses. They’re also looking at other ways to get the cash they need.

Neither is sweating it when it comes to being the first from Southridge to debate at the national tournament, Hamaker-Teals said.

“These guys are fearless,” he said.

This story was originally published February 7, 2016 at 10:50 PM with the headline "Sparring with words: Southridge debate duo invited to national tourney."