Tag Archives: Mandel, Stewart

1976-1977 U-M: Debate?

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My last year coaching at U-M. Continue reading →

I did not learn of the demise of Michigan’s debate program in time to take steps to finding somewhere else to coach during the 1975-76 school year. Also, I seem to remember that I still needed at least one class to complete the requirements for my leisurely masters degree. I had not yet decided what to do. At some point during the fall I wrote a letter to George Ziegelmueller about coaching at Wayne State University in Detroit beginning in the 1977-78 school year. This was somewhat difficult to do. I had very little respect for George as a coach and none as a judge. However, Wayne State had by far the largest debate program in the state and had a PhD program in speech. I frankly doubt that I could have gotten hired anywhere else.

Early in the school year I had a long talk with Don Huprich. He told me that U-M’s debate team was a hopeless mess. The new coach, Jack Nightingale (I think that was his name, but I never met him), was a new graduate student in speech who knew less about competitive debate than the previous year’s novices, Dean Relkin and Bob Jones. Don wanted to debate with Stewart Mandel on the national circuit. He said that he would fund the expenses for the whole year himself. He asked me to coach and accompany them on trips. He owned a car that we could use. It was newer and nicer than mine, and because it had automatic transmission, anyone could drive it. He may have even offered to pay me a little money to help.

This little door financed U-M debate in 1976-77.

I was astounded by this offer. Don explained that his father held the patent on “fruit doors”, the little devices on the back of refrigerated trucks. He had reportedly made a LOT of money on this invention. Don evidently had access to enough of it to finance a two-person one-coach debate team. He also had figured out how to represent the Michigan debate team without going through the speech department. I am not sure how he managed it, but he was able to choose the tournaments that he wanted to attend, and he mailed in the registration forms himself. Neither I nor Jack Nightingale had anything to do with it.

I had no reason to reject Don’s proposition. I had nothing planned for either semester, and I was definitely not yet ready to abandon the quest on which I had set out two years earlier.

The debate topic for 1976-77 was “Resolved: That the federal government should significantly strengthen the guarantee of consumer product safety required of manufacturers.” A few cases were very popular that year: cigarettes, air bags for automobiles, and gun control. What was left of the U-M debate team had many disadvantages vis-à-vis the other schools, but we had one huge advantage—the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI) and its enormous library. Don and Stewart spent a great deal of time there.

I don’t remember too many details about the season, but I do remember watching an octafinal round at an early tournament, maybe Western Illinois. Stewart and Don must have been debating in another room. If they had been eliminated and I had not been scheduled to judge, we would certainly have gone home. I don’t remember which teams participated in this debate. The affirmative ran a case that banned automation. Really. All automation.

Occasionally the best arguments are simple.

Both affirmative and negative debaters were always expected to justify their claims with evidence. Some ideas, however, are so ridiculous that no one has bothered to research or write about them. This was clearly one of those ideas. It is difficult to attack such a case using any usual approach. The other team doubtless has a few documented examples where automating a process was a bad idea, but what researcher would bother to document the myriad cases in which machines improved life? Does anyone want to return to the days when fields were plowed by horses and oxen? Does anyone want to eliminate machines that allow people to survive life-threatening injuries or illnesses?

I don’t remember many of the negative’s arguments, but the second negative won the debate (and probably removed the case from the circuit) when he pulled out a dictionary and read the definition of “automation”. He then just spoke frankly for a few minutes and outlined a strong case for a civilized country with a modern military and health system and an economy that took advantage of science.

The judges all voted negative, and I never heard of this case again. What surprised me was that the affirmative must have prevailed in a few previous rounds. Maybe the used a different case.

On the whole this was definitely an affirmative-biased topic. It was relatively easy to find a manufactured product that was apparently causing problems. It was much more challenging for the negative to show that the proposed regulation of that product would make things worse. Furthermore, there were thousands of consumer products, and the affirmative chose which ones were the subject of the debate. The negative had to be prepared for almost anything.

The three most important debates of the year— the semifinals and finals of NDT—were all won by the affirmative teams. Of the fifteen ballots cast in these debates, twelve were for the affirmative. Southern Cal won its semifinal on the affirmative 5-0 but lost the final round on the negative 4-1.

Those debates completed a pattern that was established much earlier in the year. If a team had a choice between debating affirmative or negative, it almost always chose affirmative. In contrast, in my senior year seven years earlier the team that won the coin flip in every elimination rounds in which I participated chose negative.

Sam Peltzman.

In 1976-77 many negative teams depended on the writings and research of Sam Peltzman of the University of Chicago. His books and articles claimed that in many cases when people’s devices were made apparently safer by a governmental requirement, the people using the devices adopted riskier strategies because they feel more comfortable doing so. For example, people wearing seat belts might drive faster or more recklessly. He had documented some cases in which adding safety devices apparently resulted in the increase in deaths or injuries.

Another approach used by many negative teams was to label harmful effects documented by their opponents as “self-imposed”. Plenty of philosophers have argued that in a free society individuals should be allowed to judge their own costs and benefits. This approach could be used, for example, against a law mandating helmets for those riding motorcycles. A person who is not wearing one may be putting his own life in danger, but his lack of a helmet is extremely unlikely to harm others. Any harm that he might suffer is self-induced.

No speed governor for Joey.

I really liked the case that Don developed based on speed governors for automobiles and trucks. Because of the energy crisis it was already illegal to drive over fifty-five miles per hour almost everywhere in the United States. Why then were many cars built to go ninety miles per hour or more? It was easy to show that decreasing the maximum speed saves lots of lives every year. In fact, speed governors had been tried in some jurisdictions. The harm was not self-imposed, at least not entirely, because most serious accidents involve more than one vehicle, and passengers seldom were allowed to vote about how hard the driver pressed the accelerator pedal. The “Peltzman effect” does not apply either. What can drivers do to offset the limitation on speed? Take a nap? Drive on two wheels like Joey Chitwood?

Many teams in 1976-77 had nearly unbeatable cases. Negatives had to be very clever. Sometimes the best approach was to argue topicality1. However, most debaters and their coaches were averse to these arguments. They were more comfortable arguing about facts and analysis than about semantics.

I don’t remember if Don and Stewart wen to the tournaments in California. I definitely did not.

For me the most memorable event of the year was the “east coast swing”. As I recall, Don’s original plan was to attend all three tournaments—Boston College, Harvard, and Dartmouth. So, the three of us set out early in the morning on Friday, January 28, 1977. As always, we drove through southern Ontario. The roads were perfectly clear all the way through Canada, but as we approached the U.S. border we noticed that the snow was piled up pretty high on the sides of the road. We were not aware that Lake Erie, which is south of Ontario and west of Buffalo, had at that point been frozen over for forty-five days! Several feet of powdery snow had been accumulating on the surface.

We drove on Route 405 to the border crossing between Lewiston, NY, and Niagara Falls (red arrow in upper left corner). At this point we were right on schedule. The roads were clear, and the visibility was good as we headed southeast on U.S. 62 skirting the northeast suburbs of Buffalo. On each side of us the snow was piled at least ten feet high. We could see no buildings. We knew that we were in a populous area, but the only evidence of civilization were a few road signs peaking out over the snowpack. It was an awesome experience, but we had no reason to feel threatened. The change in conditions only began when we reached the New York Thruway (I-90) near Williamsville (second arrow from left).

All these photos (except the toll booth) are from the Buffalo or Batavia area during the Blizzard of 1977.

Quite suddenly the wind, which blew from the west, picked up dramatically, and the snow began to fall. The wind whipped the snow around the front of our car from both sides. Visibility dropped to near zero. At times we could not see to the end of our car’s hood. Soon it became impossible even to tell where the lanes were. It was cold, but Stewart and I rolled down our windows and helped Don, who was driving, keep the vehicle on the road by continually reporting to him him how far it wase from the snowbank. He slowed down to 10 miles per hour or less.

This was the famous Blizzard of 1977 that killed twenty-three people, many of them on the stretch of road that we needed to travel. We were quite familiar with this stretch of the NY Thruway. There were no cities of much consequence near the highway until we reached Syracuse, which was most of the way across the state. Something bad would probably happen to us if we tried to go that far.

While we were inching along the highway, semis occasionally passed us. Perhaps the drivers thought they could outrun the storm. However, the wind, which gusted up to sixty-nine miles per hour, was a bigger problem than the snow. It was picking up powdered snow from Lake Erie and from Buffalo, which had already received more than ten feet of snow that year, and dumping it on the Thruway. We caught glimpses of several jackknifed eighteen-wheelers on both sides of the eastbound portion of the highway.

We quickly determined that we needed to leave the highway at the first exit that we came to. We looked and looked, but we never saw an exit. We could not see any of the road signs well enough to read them. In fact, for a long time we could see nothing in front of or behind us and only the snowbanks to the left and right. We continued moving slowly eastward for almost three hours.

At last I spotted a sign for a Rodeway Inn peeking over the snowbank on the right. It was perhaps fifty yards away. I figured that in all likelihood there must be an exit nearby. I was so concerned about missing the exit that I actually considered recommending that we abandon the car and try to make our way toward that sign by crawling over the snowpack, which was at least ten feet deep. Instead Don slowed down the car even more to avoid missing the exit.

We never did see any signs for the exit, but by maintaining a constant distance between the car and the snowbank on the right we accidentally departed the highway at the exit for Batavia, NY (arrow on the right in the above map). Our first indication that we were no longer on the Thruway was the array of toll booths ahead of us, and we could not see them until we were almost upon them.

Conditions were much worse than this.

It was a great relief to see a live human being in the toll booth. We paid our toll and told him that the Thruway should definitely be closed. He replied that it had been closed for more than an hour. We asked him if there was a hotel nearby. He advised us that there was a Holiday Inn2 near the end of the ramp.

Don guided the vehicle into the hotel’s snow-covered parking lot. At the reception desk they told us that only a few rooms were still available. Needless to say, we took one. We then asked if the hotel had a restaurant. It did, but the desk clerk said it had been closed when the food ran out. He assured us that there would be a breakfast buffet in the morning. We would have greatly preferred to have a breakfast buffet that evening, but it wasn’t in the cards, and we did not even discuss taking the car out to search for a restaurant or market. Instead we each purchased several candy bars from the machines. An hour or so later those machines were empty.

We called Tuna Snider, the coach at Boston College, and told him that we were stuck in Batavia. He was surprised to hear how bad the conditions were. I am not aware of any other teams that got stuck in this morass. I told the BC people that I did not know when we would arrive, but I would be happy to judge when we got there. Tuna said that that would be greatly appreciated. He said that he would pay me $10 per round, which was the usual rate.

We also called home and told everyone that we were alive and safe.

I am pretty sure that we had missed lunch, and we definitely had nothing but candy bars for supper. Don, Stewart, and I were therefore hungry and disappointed. However, we all appreciated how much worse it could have been. We set our alarms and asked for a wake-up call in time for us to be at the breakfast buffet as soon as the doors were open. That night we slept the sleep of the just.

By daybreak the snow had stopped. The wind was still blowing, however. So, snow that was pushed to the side of the road by the plows was often quickly replaced by snow blown off of the snowpack. The Thruway was still closed in both directions.

On the way to breakfast we saw that dozens of people had set up camp in the hotel’s lobby. Many were still sleeping. We were near the beginning of the buffet line and piled on the food. The restaurant usually allowed unlimited trips to the buffet, but on this occasion the management sensibly limited everyone to one trip. Nevertheless, they ran out of food while we were finishing our plentiful meal.

Many of the people stranded in the hotel were truckers. They were able to obtain up-to-the-minute information about the road conditions. We learned from one of them that from Syracuse to the east the Thruway was open, but that it was doubtful that the area near Batavia would reopen until the following day.

I don’t think that I-490 and I-390 existed in 1977.

A more promising development was reported later in the morning. Evidently Route 33, a two-lane road that connected Rochester with Batavia had just opened. From Rochester we could allegedly take another two-lane road, Route 31, toward Victor, NY. The Thruway was allegedly open from there to New England.

We allowed a few intrepid truckers to blaze the trail before we decided to try it. Maps were still plentiful in 1977, and I think that Don had one. Having made sure that we had good directions for making the proper connections on these side roads, we cleared a few feet of snow off of Don’s car and set off for Rochester. Initially we had to drive a mile or so south to reach Route 33 in the middle of Batavia. The roads were surprisingly passable in Batavia. The residents had never seen this kind of storm, but they had considerable experience at dealing with snow.3

The interstate shown on this map from Rochester to Victor did not exist. We took Route 31.

Route 33 was a little precarious. Snow that was continually blowing onto the highway made conditions a little slippery, but at least we could see. In a few places the width that had been cleared was not sufficient for two cars, but we encountered almost no vehicles headed for Batavia. By the time that we reached Rochester the conditions were much better. The drive on Route 31 was even easier. In fact we faced no more significant delays all the way to Boston.

I am pretty sure that I judged quite a few rounds at the Boston College tournament. They paid me, and I gave the money to Don. Don and Stewart rested up and then watched at least one elimination round. I also have a dim recollection of all three of us going to a party thrown by the tournament staff and the BC coach, Tuna Snider.

I don’t actually remember anything else about the part of the trip involving the debating. Don and Stewart surely debated at Harvard, but I don’t remember how they did. I have a vague recollection of being on the Dartmouth campus. I seem to remember that the guys did well there. I might be wrong

I have one strong memory of the drive home. Since there were three potential drivers, we elected to drive straight through with only minimal stops. We did not run into any snow. It was, however, dark and very cold when we crossed the border into Canada. Don was exhausted. He handed the keys to me.

I was alert for the first hour or so, but then I also became very sleepy. There was almost no traffic. Don and Stewart were both dead to the world. I unilaterally adopted a policy of pulling the car over to the breakdown lane every twenty or thirty minutes. I then exited from the car and stood for a second in the bitterly cold air before I walked completely around the car. I then got back in and drove on.

By the time that we reached Windsor, I had my second wind. I drove straight through from there to Plymouth, where I gave the keys back to Don.

When I arrived home Sue told us that she had been praying that we would find an Eskimo lady to take us in.

My only recollection of the remainder of the debate season before districts was an elimination round that I, along with two other debate coaches, judged between Harvard and Georgetown. They were two of the very best teams in the country. Georgetown was on the affirmative, arguing in favor of mandatory air bags.

At the conclusion of the debate the other two judges quickly signed and turned in their ballots. I, however, was not a bit certain who had won. I spent at least fifteen minutes asking to read various pieces of evidence from both teams. In the end I voted for Harvard. One of the other judges had voted affirmative and one negative, but neither thought that it was close.

I was not too worried about Don and Stewart’s prospects at districts. Northwestern’s top team had received a first round bid. I did not think that anyone else could touch the case on speed governors, and I was pretty sure that Don and Stewart, who had done well in some prestigious national tournaments, could win at least two rounds on the negative.

I was right. We all got to go to NDT at Southwest Missouri State University4 in Springfield.

The drive to SMS was long, but we were accustomed to long road trips. We had plenty to discuss on the way. For once we knew exactly the set of teams from which our opponents would be drawn.

We did not stay at the hotel recommended by the tournament. Don found one a couple of miles from the SMS campus that featured much lower rates.

The black & white episodes are much better than the ones in color.

I should mention that the people in southern Missouri talk with a much more pronounced drawl than the residents of KC, St. Louis, and points north. Springfield is near the Ozarks, the home of Jed Clampett and his kin. It resembles Arkansas much more than it resembles northern Missouri

The SMS campus was very nice. I have a pretty clear recollection of one debate round that I judgied. Two guys from UMass were on the affirmative. Their case had two distinct parts. One part advocated gun control; the other mandated speed governors. That part was similar to Don and Stewart’s case.

The room in which the debate took place was in a building facing the quadrangle in the middle of campus. It was a beautiful spring day, and someone had opened a window or two in the room. The first affirmative had completed his presentation of the case. Prep time for one of the subsequent speeches was in progress when a fair amount of commotion could be heard through the window. Some SMS students were evidently being overly boisterous.

Someone in the room, perhaps a judge, asked, “What was that?” Because I took judging very seriously, I kept my peace. However, I thought of an extremely appropriate answer: “They probably heard that some Yankees had come down here talkin’ about takin’ their guns away and slowin’ down their cars.”

For NDT every judge was asked to explicate his judging philosophy in a paragraph or two. These were accumulated, duplicated, and included in the tournament welcome packets. We also had brought the accordion file of U-M ballots from previous tournaments (and years). Before the tournament started every team was allowed to name three judges that they wished to exclude from judging them. This process was called “striking”. I don’t remember which judges we struck, but the emphasis was definitely on competence rather than who associated with whom. I did not generally go to coaches’ parties and so I was not really aware of those relationships.

In the eighth round Don and Stewart faced a very good team, Fabiani5 and McNamara from Redlands. They had received one of the coveted first-round bids. I do not recall which team was on the affirmative. I also do not remember the other two judges, but one was Brad Ziff from Georgetown. Everyone in the tournament knew that this was an important round. A few people from District 5 approached me to tell me that I should have put Brad Ziff on our strike list. They said that he never voted against Redlands.

At any rate Redlands won the debate 3-0 and advanced to the elimination rounds. In fact, they made it as far as the semifinals. Don was convinced that Redlands had won on reputation, not arguments. He was so upset that he refused to attend the final assembly in which the qualifiers were announced, and speaker awards were presented. I had no real jurisdiction over him, but I was six years older. I said that we were all going to swallow our feelings and go to the assembly with our heads held high.

Don protested that I had made an angry display at Harvard once. I admitted that I did, and it was wrong. I insisted that we all attend the assembly, and we did. If anyone knew how he felt, it was I. Still, attending was the right thing to do.

The drive back was not a lot of fun. Don really wanted to debate in the elimination rounds at NDT. He deserved it, too. I suspect that he had worked harder that year than anyone in the entire history of U-M debate.

Georgetown won the NDT that year.

At some point during the year I drove to Wayne State in downtown Detroit and met with George Z. He said that he had talked with Dr. Colburn, who had informed him of an incident involving expense reports. I explained that I had turned a large number of them at once, and the secretary got upset. He just laughed at that. He offered me a job as a teaching assistant. I seem to remember that they also waived the tuition.

1. “Topicality” refers to arguments about whether the affirmative’s plan is a legitimate interpretation of the resolution. For the 1976-77 resolution some might argue that the federal government was not the actor, that the action was not significant, that manufacturers were not required to do anything, etc.

2. My recollection is that it was a Holiday Inn, but the hotels that in 2021 are located near the exit that we stumbled upon do not include a Holiday Inn. There are also no Rodeway Inns nearby either.

3. A first-hand blog of the event in Batavia can be read here.

4. The university is now called Missouri State. The “Southwest” part was dropped in 2005.

5. Mark Fabiani was only a sophomore in 1977. He was the top speaker at the 1979 NDT. He later became a very prominent political figure both in Los Angeles and nationwide. His Wikipedia page is here.

6. Brad Ziff’s LinkedIn page is here.

1975-1976 U-M: Debate

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Finally made it to NDT! Continue reading →

The U-M team in 1975-1976 was, of course, a little different from the previous year’s. Don Goldman and I still comprised the coaching staff. The team lost two debaters. Mike Kelly had graduated, and Tim Beyer had decided not to debate after his freshman year. So, Wayne Miller debated with Mitch Chyette all year, and Don Huprich debated with Stewart Mandel. Two freshmen joined the team, Dean Relkin and Bob “Basketball” Jones.1 Bob knew Don Huprich; I am not sure how Dean found out about the team.

The financial situation was even worse than in the previous year. The travel budget remained the same, but Paul Caghan was no longer around. Even if he had been, I doubt that I would again have requested a stipend for his girlfriend. Also, I had high hopes that in March Wayne and Mitch would qualify for the National Debate Tournament in Boston. We would need to find financing for that somewhere.

Prisons use lots of land. Have you ever been to Leavenworth?

The debate topic for the year was “Resolved: That the federal government should adopt a comprehensive program to control land use in the United States.” Wayne and Mitch ran an affirmative case about the Army Corps of Engineers. Don and Stewart’s case was about coal pollution and solar heating/cooling. I liked the latter a lot more than the former.

In 1974-75 I had worked with Tim and Stewart Mandel primarily on strategy and the construction of individual arguments because their presentation skills had already been pretty well honed in high school. In 1975, on the other hand, I needed to devote more time with Bob and Dean to fundamentals.

Dean Relkin’s word rate per minute was without a doubt the lowest of anyone that I ever heard in an intercollegiate debate. There was never any doubt that Bob had to be the second affirmative. Almost everyone in college typed up the first affirmative constructive speech, which was then delivered word-for-word. Generally, the only exceptions were to add a joke or two that might be appreciated by the judge. The speech would ordinarily be delivered at a conversational pace—considerably slower than the other seven speeches.

The first affirmative speech that was designed for Dean could be read aloud by any of the other guys in seven or eight minutes. So, their affirmative case contained, by necessity, fewer arguments than anyone else’s. This was not necessarily a significant disadvantage. Sometimes debaters present more arguments than they can defend.

This is Tom Rollins. I could not find a photo of Dean Relkin.

Dean had a skill that considerably helped offset his shortcoming in the speed department. He had exceptionally good word economy—the ability to state an argument in the most compact manner. In fact, the only debater whom I have ever heard with better word economy was the legendary Tom Rollins2 of Georgetown, who won the top speaker award at NDT in 1975 and then again in 1978. He was runner-up in 1976.

To address the speed problem in the other three speeches we decided that it would be best for Dean to give the first affirmative rebuttal and both second negative speeches. Most speakers giving the 1AR, a five-minute speech that follows fifteen minutes of arguments from the negative, spoke at a very rapid rate. Dean could not match them, but his phrasing was so good that he almost always was able to answer all of the 2NC arguments and also do a pretty good job of dealing with the most important points in the 1NR.

The second negative posed a different set of problems. Most of Dean’s constructive speech could be written out ahead of time, and he was fully capable of coming up with new arguments. The problem was that the 1AR might present so many answers that Dean could not get through them all in his rebuttal. So, he needed to learn how to select one or two of his best arguments against the affirmative plan and strive to win the important points supporting those points. He also needed Bob to select an argument or two that he (i.e., Bob) had presented in 1NC and defended in 1NR for Dean to “pull through” in his rebuttal. They had to practice this quite a bit, but eventually they got it down.

Bob also had a problem that was difficult to deal with. I noticed in practice debates that he would sometimes skip an argument. In a debate this is tantamount to conceding it. Doing this even once could easily turn a victory into a defeat.

All debaters took2 careful notes when the opponents were speaking on a “flow sheet” with several columns. In one column were the opponents’ arguments. In the next column were written the planned responses in shorthand. That column served as the outline for the speech.

I decided to ask Bob Jones to participate in a mini-debate. Someone would read a first affirmative speech. Bob would take notes and prepare a first negative constructive for me to listen to. Ordinarily I would also take notes on my flow sheet, but in this case I just watched Bob while the other participant read the case.

After about a minute or two I called a halt to the exercise. I noticed that Bob was holding his pen between his middle two fingers. His thumb was barely involved at all. This might be a good grip for a bear, but there are many better ways for a creatures with opposable thumbs to write. Bob’s approach forced him to lift his hand after every few characters to see what he wrote, which, considering that none of his fingertips were in contact with the pen, could be just about anything. Try it yourself!

I was flabbergasted. Aside from hiring a first-grade teacher to come to the Frieze Building to teach him how to write, I could think of no practical advice for him. I occasionally awoke in the middle of the night fretting over this problem.

I did have one unexpected visitor in the Frieze Building that year, my cousin John Cernech, Terry’s older brother. He may have called before he arrived. If not, I do not know how he found the debate office.

He told me that he was a dean at Quincy College (Quincy University since 1993) in Illinois. It was a Catholic school of a little over one thousand students. I had no idea what being a dean entailed—Animal House was not released until 1978—and did not press him about it. That he was administering a college surprised me a little. He was two or three years ahead of me in high school, and academics was not his specialty.

John is the man on the left in this photo taken in 2012. He has a PhD and was a VP at Creighton University at the time.

He might have told me about Terry. Somehow I learned that he was managing a pizza restaurant.

He was very cordial as he asked me about what I had been up to. I told him about my classes and the debate team. I may have told him about living in Plymouth and Sue; I don’t remember. It probably would have been courteous to invite him to lunch or dinner, but I didn’t. I naturally assumed that he had come to spy on me for someone in my family. I may have been mistaken.

As a present Sue had a replica made for me of the original shirt. The only thing missing is the C. I still wear this to bridge tournaments.

I think that this was the year that the blue Michigan Debate tee shirts appeared on the circuit. The guys still dressed nicely for the preliminary rounds, but they broke out the tee shirts for elimination rounds. “Michigan Debate” was imprinted on the front in maize; the debater’s name was on the back.

They got one made for me, too. The front of mine had a “C” to denote my status on the team. The back said “Prof. Wavada”. This was in honor of the mythical Professor Wavada (wuh VAH duh) who was often announced as a judge for elimination rounds. Of course I was not a professor. I had never even taught a class in anything anywhere.

The guys were not receptive to my idea for much snazzier uniforms. I envisioned the debaters wearing maize (the color, not the plant) shirts with blue ties arrayed with maize wolverines; these ties were on sale in Ann Arbor. Over these shirts we would wear blue blazers with the school seal emblazoned on the breast pocket. The debater could add his own name on the back in maize letters. The trousers would be a tasteful maize and blue plaid. The footwear would include maize socks and white bucks with a bold block M in blue on the toe of each shoe.

I remember changing into my tee shirt whenever I was chosen to judge an elimination round. During the very first time that I wore it the room became uncomfortably chilly. I shivered so much that it became difficult too take good notes. Nevertheless, I never covered up the school colors with a jacket.

Don Goldman escorted Bob and Dean to several nearby tournaments. I remember taking the pair to two. The first was a varsity tournament at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. The guys did a terrific job. They actually qualified for the elimination rounds. I was really proud of them.

I had learned from Dr. Colburn that Juddi and Jimmie Trent were both professors in the speech department at Miami. I looked them up. I was disappointed that I did not get to talk with Jimmie, but I did spend a little time catching up with Juddi. She did not seem to have changed much. I certainly had, at least in appearance. I wonder what she thought of the bearded cowboy with glasses that I had become.

I also drove Bob and Dean to Novice Nationals at Northwestern. Three things stand out in my memory from that tournament. At the beginning of the event David Zarefsky was master of ceremonies at an assembly. He started by directing our attention to the “continental breakfast, which you all know is a euphemism for coffee and donuts.” A few people laughed.

He then presented the tournament’s staff. One of the Northwestern coaches was female, and she was very hot. I don’t remember her name. When Zarefsky introduced her he mentioned that “she had served in every conceivable position.” I guffawed, but no one else had even the slightest reaction. It was a little embarrassing.

A unique feature of the Novice Nationals was the way that the schedule for the preliminary rounds was determined. All eight rounds were set before the tournament began. They divided the country into four geographical sections. Each team met two teams from each section. I really liked this format.

Northwestern drew the line through Ypsi.

At the assembly one of Northwestern’s many coaches announced that the staff was having a contest. I don’t remember what the prize was, but they challenged the attendees to deduce the determinants of the sections. I spent a little time on this and submitted my list of teams in each section. At the final assembly they announced that there had only been one entry in the contest. They awarded me the prize and announced that I had only made one mistake. I think that I had Central Michigan and the University of Detroit in the wrong groups. The dividing line between the eastern group and the east-central group went through Ypsilanti MI.

After seven rounds Bob and Dean still had a chance to qualify for the elimination rounds. Unfortunately in the last round they faced a very good team from the University of Kentucky. Bob and Dean were on the negative. I had judged UK’s case several times, and we had plenty of time to prepare for this round.

I suggested to the guys that they should use the Emory switch in this round. That is, Dean would give his plan attacks in the first negative. Bob would analyze the advantages claimed by the affirmative in the second negative. In addition, Bob might be able to answer part of the second affirmative’s refutation of Dean’s disadvantages. Dean would have the entire five-minute 1NR to resuscitate his plan attacks. Bob would give the 2NR and pick the best arguments to sell. He had never done this speech before, but he had a lot of experience with this speech, and the mindset is similar.

The guys agreed to try it. Kentucky still won the debate, but both Bob and Dean thought that the switch gave them an enormous tactical advantage. They both thought that they would have been embarrassed if they had used their standard approach.

One of the Kentucky debaters later talked with me about the switch. She complained that the Michigan team only did that because they knew that they could not win with the usual strategy. This was, of course, true. She did not claim that the switch was illegal or unethical. She did not even argue that it was inappropriate for a novice tournament. When I asked her if Bob and Dean should have just rolled over and conceded, she just walked away.

It just occurred to me that this might have been Bob and Dean’s final debate. I wonder.

The first tournament for the four varsity debaters was again at Western Illinois. Wayne, Mitch, Don, and Stewart piled in Greenie and I drove them to Macomb. I don’t remember the details of this trip, but Wayne Miller has assured me that he and Mitch made it to the final round.

On Saturday at this tournament I must have had a round off from judging. I remember walking by myself over to Hanson Field where I watched part of a varsity football game through the chainlink fence. I don’t remember whom the Leathernecks played that day or what the score was. It wasn’t Michigan Stadium, but it was real football, and I enjoyed it.

The highlight of this tournament for Wayne Miller was not the trophy that he fondled through most of the grueling return trip. It was learning the saga of Herm the Sperm, which I related somewhere in the middle of the Land of Lincoln.

Herm was an extremely industrious sperm. He started every morning with his Daily Dozen, a set of exercises design to maximize his strength, stamina, and—above all—speed. The afternoons he spent in the pool working on his strokes. His goal was to be not just the best sperm, but the best in every stroke—butterfly, backstroke, and freestyle.

Herm had nothing but contempt for the other sperm. “Go ahead,” he told them. “Just sit there lounging around smoking cigarettes. One day, when the lights flash and the alarms sound, you’ll regret it. That’s when it will be every sperm for himself, and you just know that the first one to reach and penetrate the egg will be none other than yours truly, Herm the Sperm.”

A few of the sperm tried to emulate his devotion and energy, but they soon gave up. Herm had set the bar too high.

Then one day the lights did flash and the alarms did blare. Sure enough, Herm sped past the tens of millions of his brethren. They knew they could never pass him, but they still pressed forward. That is just what they were designed to do.

Then, to their amazement they saw Herm attempting the hopeless task of swimming against the stream. “Get back!” he cried at the top of his lungs. “Get back! It’s a blow job!”

My recollection of the rest of the tournament schedule is very spotty. Wayne and Mitch usually qualified for the elimination rounds, but they did not win any tournaments. Some of the specific recollections that I have don’t concern debating or coaching.

I remember standing with Mitch at the back of the auditorium at Emory University in Atlanta. The debate director was a formidable woman with a powerful voice, Melissa Maxcy4. Mitch could not help himself. He turned to me and whispered, “Thunder Woman!”

The Georgetown tournament was memorable for a couple of reasons. Stewart asked me to point out some of the more famous debaters. Our guys had on suits or at least sports jackets. One pair that Stewart was interested in was Ringer and Mooney, the guys from Catholic University whose affirmative case legalized marijuana. I said, “See that guy over there playing the air guitar and the tall skinny guy in the flannel shirt and the worn-out jeans. They are Ringer and Mooney.”

Bill Davey stopped in at the tournament to work the room laying on his inestimable charm. At the time he was clerking for Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart. He already knew Wayne and Mitch. I introduced him to Don and Stewart.

All the guys on the U-M team were much more comfortable debating affirmative. I told them about how successful Bill and I had been on the negative with the Emory switch. Wayne was not interested, but Mitch was rather eager to try it. As much as anything, I think that he just wanted to start his 1NC with “Flip your flows; here come the P.O.’s.”5

The most popular case that year called for the termination of nuclear power plants. Wayne found an article in which the author stated that leaving the uranium in the ground would cost thousands of lives because of the radiation from some element, radium I think. He thought that this evidence absolutely destroyed the “nukes” cases.

I was always skeptical about claims that appear in only one article. I pointed out to Wayne that the article did not specify over how many years these deaths would occur. It turned out that the half-life of radium was over sixteen hundred years!

Mitch and Wayne were at one point were experiencing difficulties with their Army Corps case when Mitch was asked in the first cross-x period, “How much is a human life worth?” No matter what Mitch responded, the negative had a clear path to a worrisome plan attack. I suggested that Mitch respond with a question:”Do you mean under the plan?” When they answered yes, he would then say that it would be “exactly the same as under the current system.” This seemed to work.

I could be wrong, but I think that only three of us went on the “Eastern swing” trip to Boston. I got angry at Mitch when he reported that he could not find a critical piece of evidence in a recently concluded round. I flung my legal pad across Harvard Yard in disgust.

My philosophy was, “If you can’t find it, you ain’t got it.” I did not think that anyone whom I coached spent enough time keeping his/her evidence orderly. One of my major frustrations in coaching was that I could never convince any debaters to implement my policy of numbering every divider section and putting that number on every card in that section.

I did a fair amount of research on prisons. I was convinced that a really strong case could be made for prison reform. Don and Stewart added it to their solar power case for a while, but they usually emphasized the solar case in rebuttals.

Debaters in those days wrote their names on the blackboard. Wayne and Mitch liked to goof around a little if they thought that the judge would appreciate it. They would sometimes call themselves “Mitch Egan” and “Wolva Reenes”. For Carl Flaningam of Butler they called themselves the Schidt Brothers, Sacco and Peesa.

As I mentioned, the top two debaters from Catholic University, Ringer and Mooney, ran an affirmative case that legalized marijuana. It was exceptionally difficult to attack. Their plan included a federal board to oversee the plan; they would sometimes even specify that the judge for the round would be a member of the board. However, all of the advantages came from legalizing cannabis, not regulating it. I suggested that we run a counterplan that was basically their plan without the board. We used it when we faced them, but we never defeated them.

I was conscientious about turning in my expense reports promptly after tournaments, but I don’t think that I earned any Brownie points with the department’s administration.

My most embarrassing moment in the seven years that I spent at U-M came during the high school debate tournament. It fell to me to announce the results at the final assembly. I made a serious error in scoring the speaker points, and, needless to say, no one checked my work. Some of the people to whom I awarded trophies did not deserve them. I had to purchase duplicate trophies for the real winners and send to all the schools that attended letters that acknowledged and apologized for the mistake.

Don Goldman and I went out for a drink after we found this out. It was the only time in my entire life that I really felt compelled to drown my sorrows.

In each octafinal pairing the sum of the seeds should be 17. If favored teams win, the sum of their seeds should be 9, 5, and 3 in subsequent round.

At some point I noticed that the tournament brackets that Dr. Colburn had provided in an appendix to his book on debate were wrong. At first he denied it, but in the end he admitted that I was right. I guess that no one checked his work either.

For the district tournament Wayne and Mitch decided to use Don Huprich’s case on solar heating and cooling. I am not sure whether this was my idea or theirs, but I definitely supported it. Don helped them a lot to prepare.

Augustana and Northwestern again received first round bids to the National Debate Tournament, and again no other team from District 5 received one.

Wayne and Mitch went 6-2 at districts and qualified comfortably. So, we finally got to go to the NDT, which was sponsored by Boston College, but held at a hotel in downtown Boston.

I don’t remember who paid for the trip. We definitely took Greenie across Canada again. Wayne and Mitch finished in the middle of the pack.

The weather was good, and the ladies of the evening were out in the Combat Zone.

I have only two strong memories. One was from the evening on which we accidentally wandered into Boston’s Combat Zone, which was only a few blocks from the hotel. This was a completely new experience for a Catholic lad from Kansas.

I also recall the evening that we spent exchanging evidence and ideas in the room of one of the debaters from, I think, Eastern Illinois. They had no idea what to say against Catholic’s marijuana case. We told them about our counterplan. They were intrigued enough to write it down. Mitch pontificated the opening sentence for them: “Once upon a time, when men were men and giants roamed the earth …”

Once again the only teams from District 5 that made it to the elimination rounds were the two pairs that received first-round bids, Northwestern and Augustana. The tournament was won by Robin Rowland7 and Frank Cross8 from KU, the two guys for whom I voted in the first elimination round that I ever judged at the tournament in Kentucky in 1974.

The drive back was long but by no means onerous.

Later we learned that the team’s budget had been cut drastically for 1975-76. For most purposes the program had been eliminated. Dr. Colburn’s title was still Director of Forensics, but the budget was not sufficient to attract anyone who was serious about debate. I still had a class or two to take, but I would not be the coach of that team. Don Goldman had finished his masters. I don’t know what he did next.

1. “Basketball Jones featuring Tyrone Shoelaces” was a popular song released in 1973 by Cheech and Chong. They somehow convinced an unbelievable assortment of people to help them. The song’s Wikipedia page is here.

Bob Jones contacted me in 2018 or 2019 about finding a bridge club in southeast Connecticut. He is a Diamond Life Master, a very high rank. In 2021 he lives in Marietta he lives in Marietta, GA.

2. Tom Rollins has had a fascinating career. You can read about some of it on his LinkedIn page. Among other things he founded The Teaching Company. I purchased several of its courses. I enjoyed listening to them on my Walkman while jogging.

3. In the twenty-first century laptops have replaced paper in nearly every area of debate, including note-taking.

4. In 2021 Melissa (Maxcy) Wade is the Executive Director Emeritus of the Barkley Forum at Emory University. To read about her career click on her picture on this webpage.

5. P.O. is short for plan objection. This includes disadvantages and arguments that the plan will not accomplish what the affirmative team claims.

6. Carl Flaningam practices law in Skokie, IL. His LinkedIn page is here.

7. Robin Rowland has taken to wearing bow ties at KU. His Wikipedia page is here.

8. Frank Cross died in 2019. His obituary is here.

1974 August-September: Transition to Ann Arbor

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Before and after the move. Continue reading →

In early August of 1974 Sue and I drove out to Michigan to arrange for housing in or near Ann Arbor. I also wanted to consult with Dr. Colburn about my new responsibilities. We found a suitable apartment to rent on Sheldon Rd. in Plymouth, about midway between Ann Arbor and Detroit. We figured that Sue would probably be able to find a job without much trouble.

Tricky Dick was finally out of there!

We brought our tent and camping equipment with us to save money on hotel rooms. After a few nights in the campgrounds we decided to splurge on a room for one night at a Ma & Pa motel. We chose the best possible night for it: on August 8, 1974, Nixon resigned as President, and we were able to watch him live on television. I was absolutely ecstatic. Everything seemed to be working out for me.

I think that Sue’s apartment in Andover was in the indicated building. This complex is now called Whispering Hills.

Shortly after our return to Andover we hosted a going-away party at the apartment. Absolutely everyone came. It lasted most of the night. I don’t remember very many details, but I definitely recall that when Herget’s girlfriend Mel kissed me goodbye, she REALLY kissed me. I was quite astounded by it.

The guys with whom I played golf gave me a yellow golf ball that they had all signed. I kept the ball for a long time, but I could not find it when I posted this page in 2021.

Puca’s cage has for some reason been relegated to the front porch and delicately balanced on its side. The light is actually at the top of the cage.

I am not certain whether we hired professional movers or just rented a trailer or truck to transport our stuff to Plymouth. We brought both cars. I don’t think that either of them could pull a trailer. The most likely scenario was that we rented a truck, and Sue drove it while towing her Dodge Colt.

The barnboard shelves are now in our basement. Puca’s cage fits in the area marked with a red rectangle.

Because Sue had Puca1 with her, we needed to take the southern route through Pennsylvania and Ohio. It is not generally advisable to try to cross two international borders with a snake. The move, thank goodness, was relatively uneventful, but we were both quite excited about starting the upcoming adventure together.

Our new dwelling was in a large house that had been converted into four apartments. Ours was on the ground floor on the southern side (on the right in the photo). The apartment had a bedroom, a living room, and a kitchen. Sue had acquired a double bed somewhere, and we put the waterbed in the living room. Puca’s cage was situated in the barnboard shelves that Dennis Comparetto had designed and built to hold him. We had a kitchen table and chairs and some dressers. We might have had a chair in the living room and/or a nightstand in the bedroom. Of course, we also brought my color TV and stereo and a few other necessities such as Sue’s cast-iron treadle-powered Singer sewing machine. The apartment came with a stove, refrigerator, and dishwasher.

A sewing machine should weigh as much as its operator, right?

The apartment had only one heating unit. It was a cube that was about 3.5 feet on a side. At least it did not require oil, as many heating systems in New England did (and still do). It was located in the living room near the door to the bedroom. As long as we kept the bedroom door open in the winter, this was not too inconvenient. Puca’s cage had a built-in heating lamp.

Tenants from all four units parked in front of the building. This might have been a problem if all four residents had two cars, but I do not remember the space ever being overcrowded. However, if anyone is considering moving to Michigan, I would not recommend outdoor parking. In fact, now that I have had a garage for a few years, I would not recommend outdoor parking anywhere. However, in those days we were in our twenties, and the cold and snow did not seem as bothersome.

Sue began hunting for a job. In a fairly short time she found one at an insurance company (it might have been an agency) in downtown Plymouth.

We also discovered plenty of nice paces to shop, including the first “super store” that either of us had ever seen. Meijer’s Thrify Acres (now just called Meijer), which was only three and half miles south of our house in Canton, was a huge supermarket that also sold just about anything that one could buy at KMart. They also had an employee named Marv who often was the cashier in the express lane. He was the most efficient at ringing and bagging that I have ever seen. I never saw him falter.

I started commuting to Ann Arbor. It was a fairly easy drive 90 percent of the time. The most likely problems were at both ends—getting Greenie to start in Plymouth and finding a parking spot in Ann Arbor. In cold weather I sometimes poured hot water directly on the engine before trying to start it. Once or twice I had to hitch-hike, which was not ideal. Fortunately, the people who gave me rides were uniformly friendly. I soon learned which side streets north of the Frieze building were likely sources of available parking. None of this bothered me at all.

This allowed everyone to take advantage of research done by others.

During one of those first few days Dr. Colburn showed me where the debate office was. It was the smallest room on the second floor, but it was more than we had when I was debating—nothing. There were a couple of desks there, and a mimeograph machine. Dr. Colburn informed me that the team’s annual budget was $2500 plus whatever we made on the high school debate tournament that a separate area of the University sponsored. We had no control over how many teams entered or what the entry fee was. We had to run the tournament, and all that we received were the judging fees that the U-M debaters and a few supporters forwent and donated to the team. There was also still a stipend ($1,000 if memory serves) available to one female debater. This “scholarship” dated back to the fifties, but I never heard of anyone actually receiving any money when I was debating. I don’t think that we even had any female debaters when I was a freshman or senior.

In short, the program was even more pitifully underfunded than I expected. However, I was definitely up for the challenge.

I was not required to teach, but Dr. Colburn had arranged for me to get a grant of a few thousand dollars. My job was to coach debate. Period.

I learned that the previous debate season had ended in catastrophe. I was never sure of the details, but I do remember these facts: 1) Dr. Colburn was the only staff member from the previous year’s team who was still involved with it. 2) Two sophomores had represented U-M at the previous district qualifying tournament and lost all eight rounds. So, both of my stints at U-M began the year following 0-8 performances at districts.

I met the other debate coach for the upcoming year, Don Goldman. He had just graduated from Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU—pronounced MITT su), which was not exactly a debate powerhouse. He was pursuing a masters in speech, and part of his duties included teaching a class or two. He knew very little about debate, and he was four years younger than I was. Fortunately, he was very easy to get along with, he was quite willing to travel to some tournaments, and he did not at all object to me making all the decisions and doing the lion’s share of the coaching. His wife Terry was also nice.

Schlesinger’s best-seller was published in 1973.


The topic for the 1974-75 school year was “Resolved: That the powers of the Presidency should be significantly curtailed.” This was remarkably similar to the resolution debated in my junior year (1968-69), but that one was limited to foreign policy. This topic was wide open. I suspected that the limitation afforded by the word “significantly” would be negligible.

A few things had changed significantly since my last debate round. Sixteen teams that did well at tournaments throughout the year received invitations to the National Debate Tournament before the district tournaments. Moreover, their schools were allowed to send their second team to districts. In addition, eight at-large bids were sent out after the district tournaments. I did not realize it at the time, but the total size of the field at NDT had also been increased from forty-four to fifty-two.

The primary purpose of the questioning is to establish areas of agreement, not to make the opponent squirm.

Formats of the debates themselves had also changed. Opponents were allowed three minutes of cross-questioning after each constructive speech. In my day high school tournaments had “cross-x”, but very few college tournaments did. Another significant change was that each team was allotted ten minutes of preparation time during the debate. In theory, debaters in my day took no prep time at all. When one speaker sat down, the next was expected to stand up and talk. However, some debaters took so long gathering their materials together to the extent that a few notorious teams were actually taking even more than ten minutes in total. The judges had no guidance as to how much leeway to allow. With the new rule the judges felt more comfortable ordering the timekeeper to start clocking the speech when the ten minutes of prep time were exhausted.

When the two three-minute periods of cross-x were taken into account, in 1974 and subsequent years each team had at least sixteen minutes in total to prepare speeches. What a change! If the debate was scheduled for a room near the library, the participants might have time to do a little research between speeches.

Within the first week I met all of the guys on the team. The district team the previous year had been Wayne Miller and Dan Gaunt. Mitch Chyette and Mike Kelly were ostensibly the second team, and Don Huprich and Paul Caghan rounded out the varsity. Two freshmen completed the team—Stewart Mandel and Tim Beyer. Mike was a senior, I think. Wayne, Dan, Mitch, and Paul were juniors. Don was a sophomore.

All these guys were from Michigan. They told me that there were quite a few other top debaters from the state who were going to school at Michigan. They knew about the team but did not want to debate. Unless one want to study agriculture or theology, U-M had the best reputation in the state. However, I suspect that the reputation of the debate program was much lower.

I also wondered how many good debaters from other states were hiding in the woodwork. There was no way to know. I would never feel right about trying to recruit anyone to participate in a program with such a paltry budget.

I met with the team. I told them who I was. I told them that I was committed to go to as many tournaments as possible within the constraints of the budget, and I was willing to drive my car. I said that we could only pay $5 per day for food; if anyone wanted more, he would need to buy it.

They were not at all daunted by the limitations. They were happy that U-M still had a program and excited about the new debating season and the fact that I was willing to spend a great deal of time helping anyone who wanted my attention. I did not know how much talent we had, but all of the guys had a good attitude.

1. Puca survived the trip to Michigan. He also survived the Michigan winters and the journey back to Connecticut. What’s left of him is hanging on a portable closet residing in our basement. Don’t ask me how he got there; I had nothing to do with it.