UT Tyler Debate Teams Rank among the nation’s best

Rankings were recently released of the top Parliamentary Debate Teams in the nation, and the University of Texas at Tyler had 2 teams very highly ranked.  Samuel Cook and Caitlin Bull were ranked 9^th, and Dallas Flick and Carver Hodgkiss were ranked 11^th!

In case you are unsure, every tournament that UT Tyler Debate competes offers the opportunity for every individual team to earn points toward qualifying for the national tournament that occurs in March.  Depending on how many rounds each team wins in the preliminary rounds, and then which elimination round they advance to determine the number of points that a team is eligible to earn.  To qualify for the national tournament, an individual team composed of two debaters must earn 18 points.

Both UT Tyler FH and UT Tyler BC, the two teams mentioned above, have earned those 18 points, which means that they have both already qualified to the national tournament. FH has earned 23 points exactly, and BC has earned 23.85 points.

This was a particularly exciting announcement, as the entirety of the UT Tyler team has been working extremely hard to prepare for every tournament and teams have been in the deep elimination rounds at every tournament this year.

UT Tyler HM (Steven Hullum and Taylor Mantsa), while not ranked in the top 50, have also been working as hard as the rest of the team and deserve recognition. 

The entire team plans to continue to work hard, and will compete at the Top City Classic on November 16th-17th at Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas, which will feature 50+ teams from all over the nation.  Dallas will be writing about the team's experience at that tournament, so keep an eye out!