If you walk past the English office after school, chances are you’ll hear seemingly incoherent rants coming from a tiny office. Those rapid-fire monologues are the culmination of hours of hard work and preparation by the GDS policy debate team.
Those countless hours of preparation have paid off. This school year, three two-person GDS debate teams qualified for the Tournament of Champions (TOC). The TOC, hosted by the University of Kentucky and often referred to as the “championship of the national circuit,” is the most prestigious national debate tournament in the country.
In order to qualify for the TOC, teams need at least two gold bids, which are qualification tokens given by the University of Kentucky for advancing to elimination rounds—quarterfinals, semifinals, etc.—in either national or respected regional tournaments.
In this year’s TOC, juniors Ananth Mangalam and Joseph Xu went 4–3, seniors Emma Renigar and Sam Wood went 2–5 and juniors Alicia Kim and Rebecca Noland went 1–6.
The last time the GDS policy debate team sent three teams to the TOC was in the 2021-22 season. In both the 2023-24 and 2024-25 seasons, the GDS policy debate team sent one team to the TOC. (In both the 2023-24 and 2024-25 seasons, two teams qualified for the TOC, but only one team wanted to attend.)
Renigar, a co-captain on the debate team, attributes the team’s success this year to their new head coach, Dawn Pierce.
Between 2022 and 2025, the GDS policy debate team has had three different head coaches. “Dawn’s much better than the past two coaches in my opinion,” Mangalam said. “She’s way better at research, which is like the foundation of where all our arguments come from. So that’s very useful to work with and have here.”
Pierce said she is enjoying her new role at GDS. “I actually think the policy debate is one of the greatest communities there is,” she said. In addition to her role at GDS, Pierce serves as the assistant policy debate coach at Georgetown University. Before coaching, she attended and competed in policy debate at Emory University.
“The people [in debate] are people that you’ve spoken with on complex issues for hours at a time,” Pierce said. “It cultivates fantastic friendships that last far, far longer than your time in the activity.”
The debate team has scheduled practices four days a week after school. In practices, the team finds evidence online for their arguments, practices writing rebuttals—which are responses to an opposing team’s argument—and competes against each other in full-lengh practice debates.
Upperclassmen often help novice debaters develop their arguments and prepare research during practices. “It’s been great to get to know some of the older members of the team,” freshman Peter O’Shaughnessy said. “It’s super fun to go into the [debate] office and have people to talk to.”
At away tournaments, the team frequently posts to @gdsdebatespam, an Instagram account that captures some of the team’s behind-the-scenes moments at competitions. The account posts goofy videos—one featured the team dancing to “Lush Life” by Zara Larsson—as well as posts celebrating their seniors’ college decisions.
After such a successful season, the debate team is excited about what comes next. “Dawn [Pierce] has definitely had a really good impact on the GDS program,” Renigar said. “Having three teams qualify to the most prestigious national championship is very impressive in her first year, and I’m excited to watch the next couple years to see what she does.”
Alex Hughes contributed reporting.