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Arguably two of the best
By Denise Dick
Poland debate duo places in top 15 in national tourney
By DENISE DICK
poland
If you get into a heated argument, you’d probably do well to have either Lidia Mowad or Catie Carney on your side.
If both are on your team, you’re almost guaranteed a win.
The students, Mowad, 17, a senior at Poland Seminary High School, and Carney, 18, who just graduated, competed last month in public-forum debate at the National Forensic League tournament in Kansas City, Mo.
They placed 14th out of 356 teams from across the country. That’s the highest any team from the Youngstown District has placed in the category since public forum came to Ohio in 2003, said Jodi West, the school’s speech coach.
They were surprised how well they did.
“We were the first team in the Youngstown District to get into the top 60,” Carney said.
In public forum, teams debate topics culled from current events.
“Rounds begin with a coin toss between the competing teams to determine side and order [Pro-Con or Con-Pro],” reads a description of the category on the website of the National Forensic League. “Public forum tests skills in argumentation, cross-examination and refutation.”
The topic of the national tournament was “Current trends in American political dialogue compromise meaningful democratic deliberation.”
“It’s a lot of research,” Mowad said.
They started with Google to find sources and from there located different political speeches, books and other reference materials, Carney explained.
They prepared both sides of the argument, but if Mowad and Carney won a coin toss, they argued against, or the con side.
The speech and debate season begins in late October, ending with state competition in early March. The national tournament caps the year.
Unlike some of the earlier tournaments, in which Mowad and Carney bested their opponents by out-researching them, at NFL, it was more about how well they presented and argued their case, Carney said.
As the competition whittled down, they were the only team of two girls left, and then all of their opponents were male.
“In the Youngstown District, there are a lot of teams with two girls, but at the national tournament it was mostly guys,” Mowad said.
As aggressiveness in a female is sometimes viewed differently from what it is in a male, the Mowad/Carney team has a developed a strategy to deal with that.
“If one of us is being aggressive, the other tries to speak more calmly,” Carney said.
Mowad agreed.
“I’m usually the one who is being aggressive,” Mowad said. “So then if a guy [from the opposing team] gets up and gets aggressive during crossfire, then I pull back,” she said.
Besides research and argumentative skills, there are some mind games involved in a successful public-forum strategy too, Mowad acknowledged.
For the most part, the girls say they’re evenly matched.
“They’re both pretty cut-throat when it comes to crossfire,” their coach said.
Crossfire is a portion of the debate when the teams question one another.
Both girls say their experience in public forum has prepared them for careers.
“We both want to do something in law or politics,” Mowad said.
Carney plans to study pre-law next year at Youngstown State University. Mowad is looking for a new debate partner and hoping to return to nationals next summer.