Scheer,+Christopher

Coaching Paradigm Christopher Scheer

I am a strange "half-lay" hybrid as a coach: I didn't debate competitively (but have been arguing my whole life, ha), yet have the teacher-coach for a fairly large policy team for the past five years via the wonder of urban debate leagues.

This leaves me understanding most of the precepts and traditions of policy debate, yet unable to accurately flow extremely fast (or unclear) spreading. And while I pride myself on being devoutly fair in terms of excluding my own biases in making a decision, I know I am human and subconsciously pleased by arguments that make sense in the "real" world, challenge accepted paradigms, are argued with passion and articulation not necessarily associated with policy debate, and do not rely on 17 nuclear war scenarios or extremely narrow topicality interpretations that don't pass the "smell test."

I really am judging the debate on the quality of your rebuttals, your explanation of your framework (as jargon free as possible, please) and why you win on that framework.

In general, I believe too many debaters act as if judges are robots who are receiving every word and inputting it into an algorithm. Perhaps some judges, former college debate stars are as close as humans will get to this! I, however, while being intelligent, am not at that "level." This means you must be CONVINCING. I don't want fake emotion or exaggerated intensity, but please work on me -- with your logic, your clarity, the overall consistency of your position.

This probably means you should slow down. My ear has become accustomed to spreading, but I often find non-elite debaters are saying less when they speed up -- the repetition, the chaos, the stops and starts...sometimes less IS more.

Finally, on Ks, Crit Affs, etc.: I am quite open to critical arguments. They have made policy much more interesting. However, if your K is just one of several off-case arguments you are making, I'm going to have a hard time giving it much weight -- especially if you are citing any in-round benefits, education, etc. And if you are claiming education as a benefit, you dang well better be educating us! And again, that probably means slowing down...