Students on the BHS Debate Team have an answer for everything.

It’s a wonder the Bainbridge High Debate Team gets any sleep.

They’ve debated other students around the state nearly every weekend since October, preparing during the week and leaving school Friday afternoons, only to return in the wee hours of Sunday morning.

And they’re only halfway through the season.

They have a lot to show for their efforts. On Saturday, BHS senior Rebecca Sivitz won the 3A state championship title in “Lincoln-Douglas debate,” and an unprecedented six students – Sivitz included – are headed to the National Forensic League finals, June 12-17 in Philadelphia.

“Our team has evolved immensely, with just five kids three years ago, and one trophy,” Sivitz said. “Now we’ve got 35 students on the team, and have won more than 100 trophies just this past year.”

BHS debate advisor Jeff Gans credits the self-motivation of the team, whose members devote as much time to debate research and practice as they do to their regular coursework.

“They are smart, driven, dedicated kids,” Gans said. “I am just tweaking what they have done.”

Even with all the time they devote to debate, the BHS team has the highest grade point average of any team in the 19-school Puget Sound region, including rival Mercer Island.

“They have just worked incredibly hard,” said Gans.

He describes team members as articulate students who do their research and can think on their feet, with judges and spectators evaluating the use of every word, argument and gesture.

When it comes to homework, he said, “they find time after school and during the tournaments. They are great at figuring out how to get the work done, so they can engage in an activity they love.”

Gans said the team does indeed love to argue, and several members credit their parents with giving them “the debate gene.”

Junior Sean Fraga, who went to nationals last year and is headed there again this year, said he got it from his mother Kathe.

“My mom is contentious and so am I,” said Fraga, who plans to study international relations and political science in college.

Fraga credits the high school with doing a good job teaching students to think critically, “which we just take to an extreme.”

“But even with all the preparation,” he said, “it comes down to how well you are able to perform.”

When Fraga and Sivitz head to Nationals, they’ll have lots of company. BHS seniors Adrian Sampson and Max Wagner have also been selected to compete there, as have sophomores Greg Nance and Ben Hudgens.

In Lincoln-Douglas-style debate at which Sivitz excels, students are given a pre-selected topic to ponder, such as “to better protect civil liberties, community standards ought to take precedence over national standards.” The competition is named after the famed 1858 debates over slavery between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas, who were running against one another for a U.S. Senate seat from Illinois.

The debater must research and prepare a 13-minute argument to support the statement, and a 13-minute argument to refute it.

Since the topics remain the same for about two months, debaters who compete frequently get a chance to sharpen their arguments over time.

“Before I go to a tournament, I go through my thesis and edit it, and I’ll look again at some of the arguments that others in competition have made,” Sivitz said. “I usually spend more time agree with, because I know I have to justify it.”

She practices her oration skills in front of her coach, her teammates, her dad Lawrence – himself a former college debate champ, who entertained his children in the car with debate drills – and her mom Susan, a volunteer debate judge.

“The Sivitzs do debate,” said Rebecca, noting that her eighth-grade sister Lizzie won two first-place trophies this year, competing against high school students.

The family dinner table, her father confirms, is a noisy place.

Be nimble

Being a good debater demands nimble thinking under pressure.

In extemporaneous speaking competitions, students have to choose from three far-flung topics – for example, what effect private investment accounts might have on Social Security – and then must present a speech on the topic after getting only a half hour to research and craft the argument.

The team brings large file boxes of news clippings on contemporary policy issues to competitions, which they use for background.

Other categories in debate resemble short plays, with competitors using facial and hand gestures and various voices to tell a story, often portraying multiple characters.

Some of the Bainbridge students are learning to be agile political pundits through a style of argument known as public forum debate – nicknamed “Crossfire,” after the TV show – in which two people spar over an issue.

It’s a rapid-fire, back-and-forth style of debate, requiring sharp jabs at the opponent’s defense of, say, a national flat tax.

The teams of Sampson/Wagner and Nance/Hudgens, will compete in the public forum category during the national competition in June.

The students say researching the pros and cons of issues gives them greater understanding of public policy, a subject many of them plan to pursue at college.

“You realize there is more to an issue than the usual left-right dichotomy,” Fraga said. “There’s minutia and details to every argument, but that doesn’t mean you can’t choose a side, or that the right answer isn’t clear.”

Gans said that while many people hold opinions about issues, few have explored their opinions as thoroughly as his students.

“Debaters can tell you why they believe something,” he said, “and they can tell you just as fervently why they don’t.”

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Help the team

The Debate Team members who will compete in the national championships in Philadelphia in June are seniors Rebecca Sivitz, Adrian Sampson, and Max Wagner; junior Sean Fraga; and sophomores Greg Nance and Bed Hudgens. Those interested in providing financial support to the team’s booster club can contact coach Jeff Gans at Jgans@bainbridge.wednet.edu.