As details of the backstory of Karl Pierson, the eighteen-year old who brought a shotgun (as well as a machete and some Molotov Cocktails) to Arapahoe High School, are slowly released by the media, memories of my own teenage experiences have flooded my consciousness. Yesterday a television station in Denver reported that the target of his assault was his debate coach, who was also, apparently, the school’s librarian. Today a newspaper in Oregon reported that Karl had evidently just been kicked off of the team. It also said that he had qualified for and participated in the national tournament of the National Forensics League last year in extemporaneous speaking. He must have been pretty good. Only the best in each state make it to the NFL nationals.

I debated for all four years of high school. I have very vivid memories of that period. As a freshman my partner and I won our first debate against two girls from (now defunct) Lillis High School. Actually, he won the debate, or maybe the other team lost. I was so nervous that I could literally hear my knees knocking together; I doubt that I said anything that advanced our cause much. I then proceeded to lose fourteen debates in a row. Two of those debates especially stand out.

For some reason the coach sent my partner and me to a six-round varsity tournament at Smith-Cotton High in Sedalia, MO. We dropped the first five rounds. The sadists who were running the tournament then pitted us against a pair from William Chrisman High in Independence, MO. These guys were not only 5-0, but they were also the defending state champions. I vividly remember being cross-examined by one of our opponents. He tied me in knots so badly that I punted and said that my partner would explain any apparent contradictions. I may have also admitted to kidnapping the Lindbergh baby. Needless to say, this performance did not enhance my partner’s assessment of my abilities.

In the other memorable round I thought that I had single-handedly defeated and, in fact, humiliated the other team. One of the members of the opposition had quoted Hugh Hefner without giving his qualifications. As the most mature member of our team, I was the one who based his entire attack on the opponent’s case on the fact that Mr. Hefner was the publisher of a naughty magazine. Frankly, I was quite certain that the offending speaker would certainly have forfeited any claim to the debate. I was not positive that he would be banned from participating in the rest of the tournament, but I assumed that some form of severe punishment was definitely in order. It never occurred to me that ignoring his other arguments might not be a wise tactic. I mean, Hugh Hefner!

I got better eventually, but I never made it to the national tournament. In fact, the only time that I was ever even on one of the top two teams at my high school was during football season of my senior year. Unfortunately for me, you see, four guys from my class (including one football player!) won the state debate tournament as juniors. I was the fifth man during both of my last two years, but I had no chance of attending the state debate tournament.

I also competed in extemp, Pierson’s specialty. In my senior year I did fairly well in that event, and I made it to the finals of the state tournament. Even then, however, I did not come close to qualifying for the nationals.

I remember having an epiphany in the preparation (they gave you a half hour or so to research and write your speech after you were given the topic) for that event at a lesser tournament. A guy from Parkview High School in Springfield, MO, confided that he usually started his speeches with a bogus quote: “Was it Coleridge who said … ?” He filled in the ellipsis with something poetic, pertinent, and British-sounding. He claimed that this was OK because he never said that Coleridge actually said anything; he just posed the question.

I was much too scrupulous to resort to this tactic. However he did inspire me to make up a pope’s name once when I had to give a speech on the effect of the papal decree of some year on modern Latin American politics. I asserted that Pope Urban had split Latin America between Spain and Portugal. I half-expected to be struck down by lightning as I was speaking or to be challenged by the judge or timekeeper, but I actually scored pretty well. (I later learned that the author of the Line of Demarcation was Pope Alexander VI, the head of the Borgia clan at the end of the fifteenth century.) I never had the chutzpah to make anything up again.

I was in debate for fifteen years. I never heard of anyone getting kicked off of my team or any other. The closest that I ever came was when Mr. Rothermick, S.J., gave me a detention for shooting imaginary baskets with my rolled-up stocking cap. If I had been kicked off of the team, I doubt that I would have walked home (I certainly had no car) and taken up my shotgun in order to exact vengeance. I would have reasoned that even if this offense did not merit the punishment, my guilt-ridden life of sin surely justified the sentence.

Yes, I owned a shotgun! It was a .410, and it hung on the wall in my bedroom as a testament to my masculinity. I remember firing it twice. Once my uncle took me out to shoot at tin cans. The other time my dad, a neighbor, and I drove out to western Kansas to hunt pheasants with some locals. I remember firing at one bird. Somebody else claimed to have hit it, but my dad for some reason always thought that my so had brought it down.

Pierson, in contrast, wielded a 12-gauge. How he managed to injure only one person with five blasts from that monster has yet to be explained. Maybe he was so embarrassed by his poor marksmanship that he turned it on himself.