Making it to the final round of the National Debate Championships put two members of the Syracuse University Debate Society in the record books.

Debate partners David Kopel and Samm Costello became the first members of the team to rise through elimination rounds of the American Parliamentary Debate Association circuit’s championship tournament to the final round, Kopel said. In addition, Costello became the second woman to compete in the final round in 10 years.

“I think we were very pleased with getting as far as we did,” Kopel said. “It’s something that we weren’t expecting, to be able to cement ourselves in the history of the debate league.”

Four other debate society members traveled with Kopel and Costello to College Park, Md., from April 19 to 20 for the tournament, he said. Two of these members competed without reaching the elimination rounds, while the other two went as spectators.

Seniors Kopel and Costello, who ultimately fell to a team from Harvard University in a debate about too-big-to-fail banks in the United States, debate on a relatively young team, Kopel said. The eight- to 10-person team only formed six years ago, he said, while some teams in the league have been around since the league formed in the early 1980s.

These more established teams, many of which come from Ivy League schools, tend to dominate the tournaments, he said. Harvard has been in the final round five times in the past nine years; Yale University four times; Princeton University three times; and Johns Hopkins University two times, he said.

This makes SU’s appearance in the final especially significant, Kopel added.

“It’s cool to have the opportunity to represent a school that people wouldn’t expect to be in the national finals,” he said.

Another source of pride, Costello said, is representing female debaters in a male-dominated circuit. Several people at the tournament congratulated her for this throughout the elimination rounds, she said.

“It’s really powerful for women on the circuit to see someone representing them. It gives them an image,” she said, noting that she benefitted from strong female role models on the team when she joined as a freshman.

Kopel attributed his and Costello’s success in part to this initial mentorship from older team members. Both joined the team as freshmen, when the team was still two years old. He also said he and Costello are “pretty good debaters.”

But neither said they expected to advance as far as they did in the tournament.

“That was literally the last thing I could imagine,” Costello said. “It was a really monumental experience.”

The pair was outside the building after the semifinal round when news of their advancement to the finals leaked, she said. Still in shock, they were skeptical of the news, but the leak spread quickly.

“It was a bizarre feeling,” she said.

Kopel described it as “surreal.”

“We hadn’t expected to get that far,” he said. “It felt really exhilarating and totally unexpected.”

Published on April 30, 2013 at 12:37 am