On May 6th, while many students were participating in competitive events, one unsung Choate team traveled to Deerfield to compete in a tournament and returned victorious. The Debate Team, led by Mr. Neil Shimmield and newly elected Captain Adi Rajagopalan ’09, met with teams from Andover, Deerfield, Exeter, KO, Loomis, NMH, and other debate powerhouses in a parliamentary style debate tournament from which Choate emerged as a clear victor.
The Varsity and Novice level foursomes from Choate each debated three issues against representatives from one of eighteen other foursomes, with topics ranging from celebrity influence in society to the federal government’s ability to infringe on people’s rights to bear arms. Dave Engstrom ’09, who won the first place award for individual novice speakers overall and also took first place among the novice pair speakers with his partner Michelle Nam ’10, says that he “was impressed by the other teams that were there, but felt that we were better.”
On the Varsity squad, the foursome of Will Downes ’07, Arman Ismail ’07, Peter Gault ’07, and Adi Rajagopalan ’09 won third place overall, with Will Downes closing out his debate career by winning first place as the best overall individual speaker at the competition.
Choate has also participated in other debates this year, an average of three every term, and according to Mr. Shimmield “all of our teams have winning records.” The most recent of these was the Belmont Hill Debate, in which the team took home four awards: the Varsity foursome won second place overall, the pairs of Adi and Will for the affirmative and Peter and Arman for the negative both took second place in the pair competitions, and Downes won third place overall for individual speakers at the Varsity level.
The Debate Team will have to say goodbye to three of its key members this year, and they will be missed, but Mr. Shimmield feels that the team is in good hands with the new generation of debaters, which includes Adi Rajagopalan ’09, Dave Engstrom ’09, and Michelle Nam ’10. As for this year, Adi feels that “Frankly, we couldn’t have closed off our debate season any better, especially because we won at Deerfield.”
Debate team poses for The News PHOTO/Michael Tsai '10
