By Rachel Neglia

Have you heard the joke about the debate tournament and the blizzard? Well, you’re about to.

A few weeks ago, Tempe Prep’s Speech and Debate team joined forces with Scottsdale Prep’s team to journey across the country to one of the biggest tournaments of the year at Harvard. The trip included sightseeing in historic Boston, long walks in the frigid cold, and even an unexpected overnight stay in Detroit, Mich.

On the first day in Boston (Friday), we rose early in the morning to go sightseeing. It was around eight degrees, so we wrapped ourselves in as many layers of clothing as possible. We walked the freedom trail and saw Boston Common, the old North Church (famous for bearing lanterns during Paul Revere’s ride) and the USS Constitution, a warship that was launched in 1797. To finish the Antarctic day off, several of us got clam chowder for dinner.

Saturday was the tournament’s main competition day, and each competitor went through a certain number of preliminary rounds. Yegor Zenkov, a senior, and I competed in Extemporaneous Speaking, in which there were four prelim rounds. Enrique Favaro and Erin Guiney, both juniors, participated in Congressional Debate. “The tournament was very draining,” Erin says, “Congress had three prelims sessions, three hours each, and there was a lot of pressure the entire time … many legal pads died in the process.”

But exhaustion wasn’t the only factor that added stress to the experience. Jaywon Kim, a debater from Scottsdale Prep, quantified the huge amount of competition there was: “There were around 350 schools alone in my event, Public Forum debate, so it was both an overwhelming and humbling experience… Rounds quickly became intense and required tremendous concentration, energy, and stamina.” Despite several mishaps with the cold weather, the team ended up being generally satisfied with their performance on prelim day.

On Sunday, the blizzard came. Boston’s entire transportation system was shut down, churches were closed, and hundreds of debaters were pent up in their hotel rooms. Since an entire day of competition was cancelled, the lower outrounds that were going to occur on Sunday were cancelled as well, meaning that for a competitor to move into elimination rounds, they needed to have had a perfect record in prelims. For example, in extemp, around 250 speakers competed in prelims. From that number, only 28 progressed to the next round. This meant that many extempers who usually win tournaments didn’t even break. Although none of the six that TPA/SPA brought broke, team Arizona did well in congress, breaking five to the semifinal round.

Although no one in our group was competing on Monday, the team went to watch outrounds to see some of the best speakers in the country. We also got to catch up with friends from other states with all of the downtime. In the evening, the whole team, along with former teammates who happened to live in Boston, had a lovely Italian dinner in the North end. There was good food and good company – the perfect way to conclude a pleasant journey.

However, the journey back was not so pleasant. After we missed our connecting flight to Phoenix on the way back from Boston, we had to spend the night in Detroit. For Erin Guiney, this was at least the most memorable moment of the trip: “We ate pizza in a sketchy motel room in Romulus, Michigan at 1 a.m. At that point we were all completely exhausted and hysterical, but it was a nice – although completely unplanned – way to end the trip.” This trip truly resulted in lots of team bonding.

If this tournament has demonstrated one thing to us, it’s that being dedicated to a worthwhile activity is rewarding. “I honestly loved every moment we were together as a team,” says Annie Mazzarella, a Scottsdale Prep debater. Despite the physical and psychological challenges that this tournament posed, we all had a great time in the end.