By Camila Santana, 11th grade.

On October 26th of 2023, the New Horizons debate team took on another challenge to add to its already vast repertoire. With a team made up of less than 25 students, we traveled all the way to Gainesville, Florida, to compete in the Bluekey tournament. The resolution, which is just another way we debaters use to say the topic, was: The United States federal government should forgive all federal student loan debt. Though the resolution looks fairly simple, it was paired up with the fact that we had no more than 3 weeks to prepare for it. Knowing we had no time to waste, I remember clearly the day the resolution dropped, which was on October 1st, we immediately started working. Our debate workshops, which are done on Tuesdays and Thursdays, were flooded with ideas, worries, chatter, arguments, and blocks to anything and everything regarding Bluekey. To top all of our personal hard work off, our coaches ensured we still were working to our highest potential, so, every Saturday we arrived at school at 7:30am to debate until 12pm. It is safe to say the only thing running through my and our other 22 debaters minds was purely student debt. We were so excited working, just thinking of all the possible things we could do with any piece of new information. 

Now, with all of our blocks, rounds, responses, and arguments made, we felt ready to give it our all in this tournament; which we are fairly new to, as this was just our second time participating. Most of the people who went, had never stepped foot in this University, so obviously we were all quite anxious, and though being anxious is a thing most want to avoid, all debaters know that being debate anxious is totally different; it is an exhilarating feeling. It is a feeling that fuels you to want to find everything and be properly prepared, specially before rounds you’re about to go into. And just as quick as that, it was already the morning of October 27th, and in less than 8 hours, we were going to be entering our first rounds out of the six in total. We met up daily in the lobby to eat breakfast, and to me, these are some of the most wholesome parts of the trips we have. We see eachother since very early in the morning, relax, talk and hype eachother up. 

Everyone in the team wants to see each other succeed. We truly feel like a family. That is a feeling that as long as years pass, I will never forget. Time kept flying by as one of our dedicated coaches and prestigious ex-debater on our team, Laura Aybar, accompanied us 24/7. She was there to not only help in debating technicalities and issues, but most importantly, to make us trust ourselves, and have an unbreakable winning mentality. Whoever talked with her, left feeling like they could do anything and get an extreme confidence boost. All of us on the team feel like thanks to that constant support system, we were able to get farther than we thought possible. After some naps, bites of food, and more case checking, we were on our way to the University!  

All of us, with the parents and coaches, walked through the streets in our debate clothes. So many people stared in confusion but we were clear of what we wanted to do that day, give our all in every single round no matter what. The first day is usually the most rough one, so after our rounds, our head coach, Mr. Arturo Feliz, reassured us that day we did a good job, but our main focus was now tomorrow. And so we took his advice, like always, and next morning, we did our usual to prepare for the 3rd round. As rounds went by we had to endure many emotions. When we won, we had to keep all of our happiness inside; to maintain composure and have a clear focus. It is something pretty weird we as debaters do, because holding inside happiness is one of the most most difficult and torturous things to do. And then we have the other side of the coin, which is when we lost the round. Most of us came out shocked and lost, and had to take a minute away from the team to fully understand what had happened. Some of us cried, and I best assure you that at least one person of our team was always there to comfort us. We let all of our emotions out and whined. Every single person who comforted you always told you that it was fine, that you’re way bigger than whatever issue you had, and to use this experience as fuel for the next round. This relationship with our teammates is one of the reasons that our team is different from any other, we grow with each other and have unconditional support.

We kept debating until our 6th round, which ended around 7pm. After many interesting encounters with opposing teams, quirky judges, and new debating styles we had to endure, we sat and waited for Laura to tell us our results. On this day, we heard the following: out of all of the 4 of our teams participating in the Novice category, all qualified for Octofinals and had a spot within the best 16 teams of said category. The debaters who made this possible were the following:

César Reyes & Gyum Ahn

Jean Santana & Anderfelix Rodriguez

Maria Olga Alvarez & Amanda Rodriguez

Montserrat Morey Féliz & Isabella Perdomo, who were able to go as far as semi-finals! 

Of these teams, 3 of our debates occupied the top 10 first places in oratory. Jean Santana took home 1st place, followed by his partner Anderfelix, in second place. César Reyes got the 7th highest placement in these awards.

Now onto Varsity, the most demanding category, all of our teams won at least 50% of their rounds. This was made possible by these dedicated teams:

Diego Peña & Ricardo Colon

Maria Feliz & Duane Bollig

Amelia Colon & Maia Lockward

Gabriela Price & Yun Ru Lin

Ethan Cabral & Juan Carlos

Apart from these amazing feats, two of our teams made history as the first males and females within the team to go into elimination rounds in our first open varsity classification:

Levi Garcia & Marco Casado

Camila Santana (me) & Mia Rodriguez

This allowed both of us to go as far as Triple Octofinals in this tournament!

After hugging, crying, laughing, calling our families and celebrating with our two other wonderful coaches and history making ex-debaters, Maria Perez and Vera Tolari through the phone, we were able to relax and appreciate these last couple of days. I feel extremely privileged to take part in debate, which is such a wonderful activity -where I would even go as far as to call it a lifestyle. I hold every single person who helped us be there, helped us prepare to be there, and who was there present, very close to my heart. Inside the moments where we find ourselves in small classrooms talking relentlessly to other people for an hour – the moments we analyze ever so deeply and think about daily – could not have been made possible without our wonderful team. I also want to thank my parents for allowing me to have this privilege of belonging and actively participating in the team. Debate has changed my life for the better, forever. 

Going as far as to helping me state my point in public or just interpreting a text, ever since I joined, I felt how my skills have developed and allowed me to reach potentials I never thought achievable. Debating gives every person two very important values: discipline and patience. But, debate has given me more than this. It brought me a bigger sense of confidence and empathy, made me a better listener, got me to be a cultured human being, and most importantly, it gave me a second family. This makes it extremely hard to imagine my life without debate, which without it, I wouldn’t be who I am today. For all these reasons, is why, always with a huge amount of pride and honor, I am able to say I am part of the New Horizons Debate team.