By Leslie Collins
Northeast News
May 18, 2011

A school banner read “Good luck at New York!”

But the two debate teams didn’t need luck, they were prepared.

Since September, the debate teams at Lincoln College Preparatory Academy have been practicing, brushing up on debating skills and researching this year’s topic: Withdrawing troops from overseas.

Two Lincoln Prep debate teams earned a spot at nationals this year in the Urban Debate League Nationals in New York City at Hunter College.

“I was really excited that we made it, but I was really scared because it was nationals,” said sophomore Lincoln Prep debater Anya Doynov.

Doynov qualified with her debate partner Corey Fisher, also a sophomore. The other qualifying team included sophomores Riley Kelly and Jared Freemon.

“As a whole, you don’t have freshman or sophomore teams at nationals,” said Donna Williams-Kubic, Lincoln Prep debate coach and speech teacher. “It’s exceptional. They are very talented.”

Williams-Kubic, assistant debate coach Jason Zimmerman, and the students arrived in New York City Thursday, April 14. Urban Debate hosted a dinner for the debaters, coaches, league directors and urban debate supporters April 14.

During the dinner, Doynov and Fisher sat next to one of the founders of an international law firm.

“They’ve been contacting us and are interested in providing us with job opportunities after law school,” Doynov said. “They have 800 some offices around the world and almost 2,000 lawyers in other countries.

“It’s amazing getting a personal e-mail from the guy who runs the law firm.”

Both Thursday and Friday, the group toured New York City, visiting Times Square, the Museum of Modern Art, Central Park and other landmarks.

Lincoln Prep debaters also caught a glimpse of two movie stars: Reese Witherspoon and Rob Pattinson, who were promoting their new movie, “Water for Elephants.” Both Witherspoon and Rob Pattinson were standing outside the Hilton Manhattan, where the debaters lodged.

“My partner had one of those fancy cameras, so he was on the window sill standing up trying to get pictures over the crowd,” Kelly said.

Although the group did sightseeing during the day, they spent their evenings studying and reviewing research for possible debate topics.

Asked how she got started in debate, Riley said, “My dad’s a lawyer, so I grew up arguing a lot. Debate just seemed like a natural choice.

“I like how we can take what’s going on in the world and sort of pretend like we can fix it and enact policies we think would fix it.”

Doynov said the challenge of debate is keeping up with world politics and the changing climate.

“You have to prepare yourself for the multitude of arguments that are used by different teams across the country,” Doynov said. “There are literally hundreds of different cases they could run and you have to prepare for all of them.”

Lincoln Prep’s preparation paid off and the two teams won several rounds.

“It’s a more intense competition,” Doynov said. “There’s more rounds and more teams to compete against.”

Williams-Kubic pointed out that at nationals, teams are competing against the best.

“In a regional competition, you may meet a team where it’s their first time out. Whereas, at nationals, everyone had to have some form of being awarded that chance to compete. They couldn’t just walk in and say, ‘I’m going to compete.'”

While competing, Kelly began to lose her voice, but persevered.

“I could barely talk. I just kept thinking only two more rounds to go, then one more round to go,” Kelly said. “Me and my partner did really well. We won three out of five rounds and we almost made it to octa finals.”

Octa finals, Williams-Kubic said, is the equivalent to the Sweet 16 in basketball.

“We won four out of five in the preliminary rounds and then we got to octa finals,” Doynov said. “It was awesome. We got into some really good conversations with the other debaters.”

Going into the octa finals, Doynov and her teammate were ranked seventh and earned ninth place when the competition concluded Sunday, April 17. Kelly and Freemon earned 17th place out of 60 teams.

“I was really worried that going to nationals, I would be one of the bottom people,” Kelly said. “The fact that I was able to win three rounds and make it to 17th place, that really impressed myself. I didn’t think I was that good.”

“I felt real proud of them,” Williams-Kubic said of her debaters. “There’s this feeling of exuberance. It’s like yeah, they can compete. They’re not the underdog. They had the ability to rise to the top and shine.”

Above, Lincoln Preparatory debaters stand proud at the Urban Debate League Nationals held in New York City April 14-17. Pictured are Corey Fisher, Jared Freemon, Riley Kelly and Anya Doynov. Leslie Collins