Seawolf Speakers take on the world in Turkey

The Seawolf Debate program just returned from the most competitive tournament of their season, the World Universities Debating Championships (WUDC) hosted by Koc University Dec. 27, 2009-Jan. 4, 2010 in Antalya, Turkey. The competition featured 400 teams from almost 150 universities representing 43 nations from around the world. First time competitors at this year's world championships included teams from Iraq and Venezuela.

The Seawolves entered four teams in the competition:

Alaska A: Michael Imeson & James Kilcup
Alaska B: Colin Haughey & Michaela Hernandez
Alaska C: Amie Stanley & Akis Gialopsos
Alaska D: Sarah Carpenter & Drew Cason

The WUDC is structured into two phases: the preliminary rounds and the elimination rounds. In the preliminary rounds, all teams in the competition face off over the course of nine rounds to determine the ranking of all 400 teams entered. Following the preliminary rounds, the top 32 teams move into the single-elimination phase of the tournament. The selection of these teams-the top 32 of 400 teams-is, at 8 percent, the toughest break in any of the tournaments the Seawolves attend.

Though none of the Seawolf teams were selected to participate in the elimination rounds, two of the four teams ended with records only one point shy of the record needed to advance. Alaska A-who had racked up an outstanding record during the fall semester-ended with 17 team points and sufficient speaker points to break had they grabbed just one more team point in the competition. Alaska D also ended on 17 points, a solid performance that demonstrates the depth of this year's debate squad. Alaska B and Alaska C ended on 16 and 15 points respectively.

The Seawolves' overall performance was record-setting for UAA's debate program. Never before have all teams ended on 15 or more points; never have three of UAA's teams ended in the top 25 percent of the competition; and never before have the Seawolves earned so many total points as a squad in the competition. In fact, the Seawolves' performance at this year's WUDC should put them in contention for a top-20 position in the world debate rankings and may establish them as the second-best team in the U.S. Those rankings will be released later in January.

The Seawolf speakers now turn their attention to the Cabin Fever Debates, UAA's intramural debating tournament. That event will open with an introductory session on Tuesday, Jan. 26 and will close with the final round on March 4. More information may be found at cabinfeverdebates.uaa.alaska.edu. The next competition for the debate team will be the U.S. Universities Debating Championships to be held by Regis University in Denver on April 11-13.

For more information, please contact Steve Johnson at (907) 786-4391.