Date: Tue, 12 May 1998 04:18:53 -0600
Reply-To: coughi@ix.netcom.com
From: "Michael H. Miller" <coughi@ix.netcom.com>
Subject: Of "National Championships," College Debates,
Amateur Competition, and Alliance Bowls
To: EDEBATE@LIST.UVM.EDU
So you want debate stories? This one isn't so funny, but it might do
you - or someone you know - a little good. At least, as Brother Sly
said, it can do you no harm.
One of the positive things I noticed in watching the 1997 NDT final
round tape was that each of the debaters had the time before his
substantive speech to say words of thanks to those who had helped and
supported him. That wasn't the style in 1969, so -
Coach, Paul, Tom, Dave(x3), Lee(x2) Steve, Mike, Skippo, Russ(x2) and
certain women whose names I choose to protect... This is for you.
Every word of what you are about to read is true. Maybe I'm just
writing to myself; maybe not.
I debated in college at the University of Houston from 1966-1970. By
accident more than anything else, I debated only 6 rounds in junior
division before being kicked up to the majors. I won more than 20
tournaments. As those of you who follow debate history know, David
Seikel and I finished 2nd at NDT, and were in the final round of every
tournament we attended (9 firsts, 4 seconds). During my senior year I
debated with both Tom Goodnight (now at Northwestern) and Paul Colby
(still in an altered state). Although I couldn't match the record I had
with Seikel, we cleared at every tournament we attended, and we won
Texas, Georgetown, Northwestern, and Heart of America. I also won Top
Speaker at NDT, where Paul and I ripped through the prelims to come out
number one seed.
We finished third, losing to Kansas, the ultimate NATIONAL CHAMPION. Not
a bad record, right? But within seconds after being knocked out of NDT,
through and including the end of 1995 (a quarter of a century), I
thought of myself as a total piece of shit; a loser, a choke-artist,and
an abject failure. I've made several half-hearted suicide attempts, and
I've hurt people more times than I can ever make up for.
Debate didn't force that on me. Ultimately, it may have saved my life.
But my abuse of debate was as damaging as any kind of abuse of alcohol
and/or drugs, and/or tobacco.
Just a brief (yeah, right) explanation of my pre-collegiate background.
I attended two different high schools, Houston Jesuit (frosh and soph)
and Westbury H.S.(junior/senior). Like every good little Texas boy, I
began playing organized football in the 4th grade, and I played baseball
during the Summers to stay in shape for football. When I had to leave
Jesuit (for reasons too insignificant to explain),
I discovered that I could not participate in any team sports at
Westbury, because of the "transfer rule" - a device to prohibit illegal
football recruiting in junior and senior high school, I swear to God.
The only extracurricular activity open to me was speech/debate. I did
some oratory, extemp, DI and HI my junior year. In late November of my
senior year, I was leaned on to debate with an experienced senior whose
partner had flaked out on her.
What was memorable to me about debate in high school was not my won-loss
record - we did okay - a couple of firsts, three thirds, and the rest
quarters or octa's; it was that I fell hopelessly in love with my
partner. I proposed. She accepted. And I spent the entire Summer of
1966 planning to go to college with her, start a career (journalism),
get married, start a family - I was white bread and Susie Creamcheese
all the way.
Then - to put it mildly - she pulled the plug on me. She went away to
Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama, and slowly but surely cut me out
of her life, piece by devastated piece.
So it was that I arrived at that Mecca of higher learning, the
University of Houston. It was not only my father's alma mater, it was
his obsession. As a member of the Texas Legislature he had authored,
sponsored, and jockeyed through the bill that made UH a state-supported
school. My first conscious memory is being carried by my father out of a
UH-Baylor football game in Waco. I went to every UH home football game
between 1960-65, and most of the home basketball games. And my father
expected me to follow his example by doing everything I could to make UH
"respectable."
When I first wandered onto the Houston campus in the Fall of 1966 I was
barely 18, and totally clueless. Having been "dumped" by the only girl
I had ever loved, and thought I ever would love, my moods varied from
severely depressed to completely suicidal. I didn't know a soul on
campus, and had made no plans at all for the year.
After bumbling through the first couple of weeks of school, I saw Paul
Colby, who I had met at a previous high school speech tournament. Paul
suggested I come to a meeting of the debate squad. I did, and within
less than a week I was hooked.
Everything became clear - I was going to make UH respectable and make my
girl come back by winning a NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP; okay, it was debate,
not football, but it was a NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP just the same, and the
only NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP Houston had ever won was in golf, of all
things.
Bill English frequently used the term "debate bum" to describe people on
the squad who had no life but debate. Looking back, I think a more
appropriate term was "debate addict" or "debate junkie," but whatever
you call it, it was pathological.
I stopped going to class almost completely. If I wasn't researching, I
was
bullshitting with the other debaters, especially the juniors and
seniors. If anything needed doing, I volunteered - I was a suck-up and
a "go-fer" before the terms had been invented. Debate had become my
fraternity,my major, and my only social outlet.
The cycle (no pun intended) grew worse with each semester. When Russell
McMains and I won the "Texas State College Debate Championship" in the
last tournament of my freshman year (the title was far more impressive
than the competition), and our picture was in the papers - both campus
and city, it was a rush like nothing I had ever experienced.
At least I had enough common sense to go to Summer School to bolster my
miserable GPA, but I did that only to stay academically eligible to
debate. When my sophomore year began, so did the mania. I was on the
"B" team, just behind Seikel and Ware, and I knew that if I played my
cards right, the NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP would be within my grasp.
I started to smoke, then chain-smoke. English had reel-to-reel tapes of
old NDT final rounds that I listened to over and over. If I wasn't
debating, I was researching. If I wasn't researching, I was hanging out
at the new debate squad room. My class schedule was structured to be
made up of: courses related to the topic (so I could bluff my way
through the papers and essays) every speech course that was
performance-oriented instead of scholarly, and English (the subject, not
the coach) courses I could slide by on with cram sessions and Cliff's
notes. Unfortunately, I had to take some hard science and math classes,
in which my grades were miserable.
McMains and I won six local/regional tournaments, and we made a
respectable showing on the West Coast swing, at Northwestern, and at the
Tournament of Champions. By the middle of that year, I had taken my
first drink (I told you I was white bread) and by the time the year was
over my routine was evenly divided among research, hanging out in the
squad room, getting drunk, asnd listening to Revolver and Sgt. Pepper
over and over again, all the time thinking of the NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP.
Little things, like getting my education were passing me by, but what
did I care? I was going to win the NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP.
The 1968-69 topic had not been out for more than 12 hours before Seikel
and I were in full gear. Nothing I have done as an attorney even comes
close to the work I did that August-September. My diet consisted of
cigarettes and gallons of coffee, punctuated occasionally by junk food.
Given the nature of the topic, I loaded my class schedule with political
science courses related to the Presidency and foreign policy. Those
nagging little courses - astronomy, geology, physics - dragged down my
GPA but never
deterred me from my mission.
And when Seikel and I set foot on the plane to Boston, I was wired.
There wasn't an iota of fear within me, even though I knew I was going
out to take on the best the East Coast had to offer. They didn't know
me, but I was ready to take names and kick ass.
We didn't win MIT, but we should have. We rationalized the loss to
Harvard in the final round by blaming the judging pool - I don't think
there was another school from District III at the tournament.
Then we rattled off five tournament wins in a row. It was intoxicating
- we were "legends." Wearing black suits, black gloves, and carrying
large black leather ox-boxes, we moved from round to round with the
swagger that comes from being on a roll. We were also becoming the
target of every good team and every good coach in the country, as well
as the object of a lot of hatred, but we didn't care. Bring 'em on.
Then came the West Coast swing. The first tournament was UCLA and we
LOST in the final round, 4-3. Once more Seikel attributed the loss to
"homer" judging (we lost to Southworth), but I was starting to feel
something else... the nagging realization that we could lose.
Now think about this... We had been to 7 tournaments, and won five.
We were in Westwood on a beautiful New Year's Eve night, and there was a
terrific party going on. Did I have a good time? Bullshit. I roamed
around for about an hour, then went back to the room and started going
over the ballots and my flowsheet.
I spent New Year's Day, 1969, re-writing our case (in the "questions"
format Unger had used at the 1965 NDT} and occasionally looking up at a
bowl game. The libraries and bookstores weren't open, but I found a
pretty good newstand that was, so I started cutting every newspaper and
magazine article I could find.
Then I started getting my fixes again; we won Redlands with a 12-0
record, then Northwestern, dropped to Oberlin in the finals at Harvard,
then bounced back with nice wins at Dartmouth and Heart of America.
There were no "at-larges" then. Either you qualified at your "district
tournament," or you went home. There was no shortage of people in
District III who would have gladly gone 1-7 if they could have beaten
us, as well as a lot of alienated judges who thought we had gotten too
big for our britches. But we survived.
Seikel was convinced, both by the Heart of America "curse," and by the
fact that we had come so far, that we were jinxed before going to
Nationals. I was having none of that. Limiting myself to no more than 5
hours of sleep per 24, I meticulously went over every team, every judge,
every argument.
Then there I was at NDT, competing for the NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP. Even
though we were number one on everybody's hit list, we had a solid 6-2
record in prelims, including a win over Harvard. Seikel was Top
Speaker, I was 9th, and we had avoided the "curse" of being top-seeded.
No offense to the teams we debated, but we rolled through octa's and
quarters. In the semis, we hit the excellent UCLA team we had dropped
to in prelims. They had a new, improved, affirmative case, but I had my
best round of the tournament, if not the year. We cruised, 4-1.
And there it was - the NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP round; the trophies and
watches on the table, all eyes on us, including those of our coaches,
English and Ware, as well as those of a beautiful debater from Baylor
who had been playing hot and cold with me for over a year.
WE GOT BEAT. I have a lot of stories (some humorous) about the round,
as laster because a squad cliche, we SUCKED GAS. Worse still, after I
heard the first affirmative, I believed in my heart we were going to
lose, although I fought like hell against it.
They were Harvard - we were some chickenshit school from nowhere; Lewis,
was, as usual, eloquent; Harvard had shifted back from the case they ran
at Dartmouth and Heart to the CIA case, which deep inside, I agreed
with. I fought like hell, and I put out everything I had, and David was
David, but the NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP was going to Harvard, and UH was
just another flash in the pan.
It is, perhaps, indicative of something that I can only clearly rember
five debates from that season: the four final rounds we lost, and the
final round of Heart of America. All that I knew was that when the
chips were down, Harvard had the right stuff, and Houston was garbage.
For the rest of that Spring and Summer, whenever I could get the house
to myself, I drank, usually as much as a half gallon of bourbon per
weekend, and I listened to nothing but Led Zepplin and other dark
groups. I started using drugs (to protect myself, I decline to state
whether they were legal or illegal). I entered into a series of
relationships with girls in which I followed a standard m.o.: persuade
them I was truly in love with them, and then cut them off for no reason.
My principal recreation was committing random acts of vandalism against
the property of people I had never met. In short, I was a useless,
self-pitying, repulsive parasite.
With 20-20 hindsight, I now suspect that English and Colby and Goodnight
did not fully understand what I was doing to myself - and them. First, I
told them (sincerely, for once) that I didn't want to debate anymore.
Then I agreed to debate, but I didn't give it any effort. I let others
do the research and carry the load. In fact, given the disparity
between my work in the Summer of '68 and my work in the Summer of '69,
I'm surprised I won any debates at all during the Fall Semester.
UCLA returned intact that year, and Canisius, Harvard and BC came
roaring out of the East, and USC, LMU, Kansas, Oberlin, and Northwestern
were all loaded for bear.
I went to MIT with Tom Goodnight that year, debated like crap, and got
blown out in the quarters by Canisius - for which Tom unfairly got the
blame. Colby and I were put together, he carried me through a couple of
tournaments, and then out of guilt and embarrasment, I started back on
the trail for the NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP. By the time the regular season
was over, the juices were flowing again, the mania was back, and we had
as good a chance at the NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP as anybody else. It was a
horserace.
I was liked the gambler who know that the machine is going to hit big
with just one more pull.
I don't know if I really deserved to be Top Speaker at NDT that year;
I suspect some of the judges might have nudged me a point or two out
of sympathy, but Paul and I debated the best we could until...we lost.
The main thing I remember about the aftermath of the announcement of the
decision
is that it was the only debate my mother and father had ever come to see
me in. My mother didn't know how to react. I don't know who started
it, but my father and I couldn't look at each other. No one said a
word. Once again, I had failed the University of Houston, only this
time it did it right on the UH campus in front of all my friends, family
and teammates. A black minister had listened to almost all of our
rounds. Paul and I to this day have no idea who he was. As I slogged
up the slanted auditorium floor, he hugged me, tears running down his
face, and said, "Why did this happen? You were speaking the truth."
Not being in the mood to explain the rules of debate, I just shook my
head, smiled and hugged him back.
Nobody keeps statistics on these things, but Colby, I, Killenbeck &
Brown of BC, and Goss & Wagner of Canisius drank the bar at the
Astroworld Hotel dry that night. I had never liked Goss befoire, but I
found that we were two-of-a-kind.
He was just as driven, manic, insecure and bitter as I was. The only
difference between us was two speaker points and the fact that he went
to a college where roll was taken in every class.
We spent the Summer together at the UH Institute, drinking like fish,
convincing ourselves that we had been screwed, and that life was stacked
against "ordinary"
guys like us. We even went all the way to Chicago to a thing called the
National Professional Debate Tournament (where our coach was a guy named
Ken Strange) solely
to prove we were NATIONAL CHAMPIONS and to humiliate two of the coaches
who had voted against us at NDT. We won the tournament, received $2,500
apiece, and declarared ourselves vindicated and revenged.
Problem was, we convinced everybody but ourselves. After the Summer of
1970, everything I did was motivated, either in whole or in part, to
prove that I really should have won the NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP. I didn't
marry a woman I loved; I married a woman whom I liked and respected, but
who was also a coach who thought I had deserved to win the NATIONAL
CHAMPIONSHIP. I didn't coach debaters; I debated by proxy. I didn't
try cases for my clients alone; I was trying to show everyone in the
legal community that even though I graduated from a mediocre University
with mediocre grades, and even though I went to a law school which,
though ABA accredited, was hardly prestigious - I was
really a NATIONAL CHAMPION who could kick their asses.
But, for a long time, I was such a good debater I convinced everyone,
including myself, that I was doing just fine - that lots of people live
in four years of celibacy during marriage, then have affairs, then get
divorced; that lots of coaches are "hands-on," and dictatorial, and
throw things; and that I could do everything involving litigation
better than everyone else, because I should have been the NATIONAL
CHAMPION.
So why am I still alive? Why am I now happy? Luck - or grace - it
amounts to the same thing. I met, fell in love with, and married the
debate coach of a rival school.
She was never a whiz-bang success on the debate circuit, but she knew
all of my logical fallacies, and couldn't have cared less about NDT
1969, 1970 or 2001. She made me straighten up. Many of the other people
I grew to know and love through debate helped me through the long, hard
struggle against anger and debate addiction. They got me to get help -
both professional and otherwise. But I still won't let myself get back
onto the litigation treadmill, because I know, as sure as the sunrise is
an optical
illusion, that if I let myself go, I'll be after that NATIONAL
CHAMPIONSHIP.
If I am informed correctly (and I hope by all that's holy, I am not),
David Goss wasn't so lucky. After finishing law school and a few years
in the trial arena, he killed himself.
So what's the point?
(1) What you learn from debate is highly powerful; used properly it
will serve you;
used improperly, it will destroy you. Make sure you have a process for
making regular reality checks.
(2) Why do we have to have a NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP in college debate?
Yes, I know I'm not credible because I didn't win NDT or CEDA or
whatever (and also because I'm an admitted fruitcake), but who truly
benefits from a NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP? Isn't it just one team? And
given the type-A personalities in debate, doesn't that create the risk
of more Millers and more Goss's? So many of you are not favorably
disposed to the length of the season anyway, why not chop off the last 6
weeks? Have a schedule of tournaments just like they do in professional
golf and professional tennis, and when the season's over, people can
look back on their accomplishments rather than despising themselves for
not winning the NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP.
(3) In college competition generally, we are dealing with very young
people -
including many of the young coaches - who work like demons and are then
asked to judge rivals and potential adversaries. Technically, they are
"adults." But read this EDEBATE list carefully - do you see any signs
of stress, anger, frustration or other hurtful emotions? If so, why put
the burden of reaching/defending "Number 1" or a "NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP"
on these people - and yourselves?
(4) Why did I mention the "Alliance Bowls?" Because what they are
doing to college football is what exists in college debate. It used to
be that a trip to a bowl game could mean a "disputed" or "divided"
NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP. Yeah... so? Now, who cares who goes to any bowl
except the 1-2 match-up? These kids - and they are kids - can salve
themselves by going pro and setting their sights on the SUPER BOWL,
which is held every twelve months. Once the curtain rings down on a
senior at CEDA Nationals and/or
NDT, however, the debater is stuck with the result for life - and maybe
death.
Just my opinion - I could be wrong...
MHM
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