THE DEBATE UNION

Congratulations to Charlie Sprague and Jesse Katz Blumenthal, the winners of the 2010 US Universities National Debating Championship. The tournament was sponsored by Regis University and the University of Denver, April 8-11. Charlie and Jesse were undefeated in their 10 debates. They placed ahead of Stanford, Yale, and Portland State in the final. The tournament included 124 teams representing undergraduate and graduate institutions from throughout the US.

Congratulations to other award winners at the tournament. Ellen Lebow and Adriane Holter were tournament octafinalists; Nick Rosa and Priya Srivats finished in fifth place among novice contestants (students in their first year of British Parliamentary intercollegiate competition). In addition to team honors, Jesse Katz Blumenthal was the 9th ranked individual speaker and Charlie Sprague was 11th speaker. This was the third time that Charlie has placed in the top ten at the national championship tournament. He was 2nd in 2008 (partner – Kari Wohlschlegel POM ’08) and 9th in 2009 (partner – Raymond Lu POM ’11). It is the second time that Jesse has placed in the top ten. He finished 10th in 2008 (partner – Joseph Clifton CMC ’11).

Other attending teams did extraordinarily well at the championship. No Claremont team was eliminated from competition prior to the result of the final preliminary debate. This is the fourth national championship for the CCDU but the first in the BP debate format, now the most popular college and university debating model in the US and in the world.