When Debate Coaches Attack : Dispatches from the Culture Wars

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Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of Michigan Citizens for Science and co-founder of The Panda's Thumb. He has written for such publications as The Bard, Skeptic and Reports of the National Center for Science Education, spoken in front of many organizations and conferences, and appeared on nationally syndicated radio shows and on C-SPAN. Ed is also a Fellow with the Center for Independent Media and the host of Declaring Independence, a one hour weekly political talk show on WPRR in Grand Rapids, Michigan.(static)

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When Debate Coaches Attack

Posted on: August 17, 2008 9:09 AM, by Ed Brayton

Video of a nasty argument between two debate coaches, one of whom mooned the other one in the middle of the argument, has been put up on Youtube. The argument took place in March at the CEDA national tournament. The older white guy with the beard is William Shanahan, who coaches the team at Fort Hays State University in Kansas; the younger black woman is Shanara Reid-Brinkley, who coaches the team at the University of Pittsburgh. They scream obscenities at each other before being pulled apart. She called him an asshole several times and he apparently decided to show her his asshole. Video below the fold.

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Comments

Did they learn debate from watching Springer and did that guy in the yellow shirt start crying?

Posted by: tincture | August 17, 2008 10:04 AM

Master Debaters.

Posted by: H.H. | August 17, 2008 10:10 AM

And to think I never enrolled in a speech or debate class because I didn't think it would be that interesting. Obviously it can be more exciting than I guessed.

And debate professors can be such good role models, too.

Posted by: Zeno | August 17, 2008 10:37 AM

I think Mr. Shanahan might have slightly misunderstood the nature of an "a posteriori" argument. Perhaps the universities involved should have specified that they were looking for coaches for civil debating...

Posted by: Phillip IV | August 17, 2008 11:12 AM

If you go to YouTube you will see a video link to Shanahan try to rationalize his behavior.

Scoring Shanahan's debating technique

Mooning the opponent (5 points)
spot-on mimcking of a 3 year old's Temper tantrum jump (10 points)
non-stop shouting above others (15 points)
waving around his hair in some sort of hippie/headbanger combo (25 points)
yelling at a student until he cries and stands in between him and his opponent (100 pts)

Letting us see how he "cares so much" - priceless

Posted by: Anna | August 17, 2008 11:51 AM

Bill Shanahan does not seem to be an asset to FHSU; this exposure will generate more cracks about crappy educators and lead Kansas to once again become the butt of late-night jokes. His brand of toilet humor might be tolerable once in a blue moon, but this latest escapade makes FHSU administrators look asinine for standing behind him.

Some of his former students are saying Bill's getting a bum rap, that he's the victim of a smear campaign and shouldn't be canned. They don't seem to realize that Bill could have chosen to put an end to his childish and violent behavior.

Any ass who embraces being an a**hole shouldn't be surprised when the community sternly refuses to embrace him.

(13)

Posted by: nunyer | August 17, 2008 12:31 PM

Simply amazing. How many seconds would it take for a college basketball coach to be fired for a display like that?

Posted by: Tim | August 17, 2008 12:43 PM

Are debate coaches part of the faculty? Are they not obliged, as 'debate coaches', to show that rational discourse is the civilized alternative to vulgar language, name calling, temper tantrums, and violence?
They should both be fired.

Posted by: Rod | August 17, 2008 12:44 PM

How many seconds would it take for a college basketball coach to be fired for a display like that?

Hah, like Bobby Knight - which is another thread :)

But then again, he wasn't teaching students how to behave in a debate.

Posted by: Anna | August 17, 2008 12:51 PM

Though I'm not defending the coaches, I will say that I think that this kind of crap is a direct result of the "Louisville" argument that turns every debate round into a battle of who has been more racially oppressed. I'm very happy I never had to deal with that in high school debate. Unfortunately the louisville argument is like an incurable virus which now effects debate at all levels. Even the Washington D.C. urban debate league which just started a few years ago, was teaching their kids to run that argument.

Posted by: Alan | August 17, 2008 1:20 PM

I can't believe Fort Hays hired a homeless man as their debate coach.

Posted by: mgordon | August 17, 2008 1:25 PM

What was that all about?

Posted by: soboco | August 17, 2008 1:49 PM

What is it about debate that brings out this kind of crazy behavior? Back in high school, I remember a coach being fired for cheating to help her team advance. Coaches were always sniping at one another over perceived slights and past transgressions.

Posted by: BrianK | August 17, 2008 2:01 PM

Please remind me, who are the adults in that clip and who are the kids?

Posted by: CHV | August 17, 2008 2:28 PM

In this age of ever-increasing cynicism and apathy, isn't it heartwarming to find some modern college faculty members who really care?

Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | August 17, 2008 2:46 PM

It appears that the judges are the coaches here and that they can "strike" a coach which would not allow that particular coach to judge?

Anyone have some clarity on how this system works? If this is the case it seems ripe for cheating, strategic voting and well bad behavior. Obviously, neither professor believed that the other was playing fairly and as ridiculous as they both acted, I would guess they both had reason to mistrust one another.

Posted by: Anna | August 17, 2008 2:59 PM

@Rod,

At college level, debate coaches are usually hired as faculty in a subject like Communication. Some of them really do nothing other than coach debate, but I have known of others who actually taught courses and even did research on other topics.

@Alan,

I haven't followed college debate for some time so I wasn't aware of the Louisville nonsense until you mentioned it. This is really a scandal. That a team won by defending a proposition other than the resolution is stunning. If I were judging, I would have ended the round after the first affirmative speech with a decision for negative. Failure to defend the resolution is an automatic loss.

Posted by: Bill Poser | August 17, 2008 3:02 PM

Another fine product of Kansas.

Posted by: Jon H | August 17, 2008 3:34 PM

@Anna,

I don't know the current rules for CEDA, but yes, in general, at debate tournaments the coaches are the judges, and yes, this does present potential for bias. Major tournaments will usually arrange for judges who are not current coaches at the elimination stage (finals, semi-finals, etc.).

The reason for this is that it is very difficult to find qualified judges. For this kind of debate, with the rarest of exceptions only good former debaters are capable of judging, and the only ones who are readily available are the coaches. The rest have gone on with their lives and are not hanging around debate tournaments. For the finals of a major tournament you can scare up some former champions, but you can't get enough such people to provide non-coaches as judges in preliminary rounds.

If you're not familiar with this type of debate you may wonder why only former debaters are qualified to judge. The reason is that this type of debate is extremely technical. This kind of debate goes so fast at the higher levels that someone not experienced with it can't even follow. There are technical rules that the judges must understand, e.g. why a counterplan must be extratopical, and technical terminology that is used to save time: "they dropped their inherency argument".

Some people dislike this kind of debate, which they regard as too technical and clinical, devoid of eloquence. For them, there are other kinds of debate, often called "Lincoln-Douglas" or "Oxford style", where the point is to be eloquent and humorous rather than to overwhelm your opponent with research and logic. Anyhow, lay people are quite incapable of judging this kind of debate. It has been tried from time to time and the results are always disastrous.

Posted by: Bill Poser | August 17, 2008 3:38 PM

Thank you Bill.

Posted by: Anna | August 17, 2008 3:57 PM

A little research into this incident suggests to me that Shanahan is basically the good guy. That is, no, mooning your opponent is a bit over the top, but it looks like: (a) he had the valid position in the debate; and (b) she initiated the inappropriate behavior.

Here's what I think happened. The background is that traditionally this kind of debate has, as I explained, been quite technical and determined by facts and logic. A variant of postmodernism has developed in debate circles that reduces the role of fact and logic and politicizes everything. Describing this in detail would take a while and be nauseating. If you want to find out more, start with the Wikipedia article on "kritik" in debate. It looks like Shanahan represents the traditional fact-and-logic side, Reid-Brinkley the pomo side. (Her dissertation is reportedly on the role of hip-hop music in debate!)

So, when Reid-Brinkley was appointed to judge a debate involving Shanahan's team, his team used its power to strike her as a judge. That is not unreasonable since she would not be expected to judge the debate on the basis that she is supposed to. The normal etiquette is of course that a judge who is struck accepts the decision and steps down, just as a juror removed by peremptory challenge does. Reid-Brinkley, however, started the screaming match by attacking Shanahan, claiming without foundation that his team struck her because she is black. Shanahan, probably expressing frustration long preceding this incident, became quite emotional and screamed back, ultimately mooning her.

Posted by: Bill Poser | August 17, 2008 4:17 PM

I've got some serious problems with the Louisville project and its descendants as well. While I certainly do understand the concern about lack of minority participation in high school and college debate, I think the means of addressing that disparity used by Ede Warner, Jon Bruschke and others is not only a bad idea it's one that undermines their own position. Alan mentioned the National Association of Urban Debate Leagues above, which I think is a terrific organization that is doing great things to address that disparity and increase the opportunities for minorities in debate. Recently, Scott Deatherage, the longtime coach at Northwestern who is like the John Wooden of college debate, resigned to become the executive director of the NAUDL and his presence will ramp up that organization's resources enormously. The NAUDL provides grants to schools to fund debate programs and that really is the key.

Debate is a very expensive activity, especially at the highest levels. Unlike most school activities, at the top level of debate the schools compete against schools from all over the country at tournaments. For the best high school debate teams, it's not unusual for them to travel all over the country during the season: Dallas for the Greenhill tournament and Washington DC for the Georgetown Day tournament in September; Chicago for New Trier and Dallas for St. Marks in October; back to Chicago for the Glennbrooks in November; Minneapolis for Blake and California for the University of Redlands in December; Nashville for Montgomery Bell in January; New York for Bronx Science and Boston for Harvard in February; Kentucky for the Tournament of Champions in April. It's extraordinarily expensive to travel around the country that way. For a top national program, the cost can be upwards of $200,000 or more every year. Most schools simply can't afford that kind of budget these days, which is why most of the top programs are from elite private schools. There's also a tier below that of teams that operate mostly at the state and local level, but even there the expense is significant. Most schools these days can't afford even a $15-20,000 budget for state travel. That's why the number of schools offering traveling debate programs has dropped enormously. When I was in high school and coaching during college, a large tournament might be anywhere from 80 to as high as 200 teams. These days a tournament with 50 teams is considered large.

The cost of the activity essentially eliminates small public schools and inner city schools of any size. But the NAUDL is doing some great things to help fix that and the number of minority kids participating is growing fast. That opens up enormous opportunities for those kids, including college scholarships. Deatherage will no doubt make the organization even more effective and well funded. As a friend of mine who coaches college debate put it, he knows he's going to get the call from Deatherage saying, "We need you to do more to help the urban debate leagues." And there's no way they can say no to him. The guy is a legend. His name alone should significantly boost the organization's funding and ability to get things done.

Posted by: Ed Brayton | August 17, 2008 4:19 PM

Bill-

I don't know what specifically precipitated this fight, but in reality Shanahan is himself a pomo. I've got a post to go up in the next day or two with an op-ed he wrote claiming that religion and science are just different ways of attaining knowledge, one no more correct than the other.

Posted by: Ed Brayton | August 17, 2008 4:23 PM

It seems to me that much of the problem could be dealt with at the high school level by the NFL (that's National Forensic League, not
Football) if it was willing to regulate participation in tournaments. Currently, a team can participate in whatever tournaments it wants to. The only restriction is that to qualify for Nationals you have to win either your state tournament or your regional tournament. That means that the good well-heeled teams can debate on their own little national circuit while everybody else is stuck going to the tournaments close by. In theory they can still go to nationals, but without the experience of having debated the top teams they have little chance.

The NFL could address this by (a) limiting the number of tournaments a team can go to outside its area; (b) sanctioning certain tournaments in each area and raising funds to support them, so that teams with limited funding can still attend.

Posted by: Bill Poser | August 17, 2008 4:36 PM

Ed,

Yes, I know that Shanahan is a pomo of a sort, and he is even associated with the development of one form of kritik (when he was in Texas), but he appears nonetheless NOT to be a Louisvillist.

Posted by: Bill Poser | August 17, 2008 4:38 PM

I stopped coaching in 1990, just as the kritik was beginning to be used. At the time I thought it was a healthy development because it was more real world in approach. In the real world of policymaking we don't just weigh out costs and benefits, we also apply philosophical tests. For example, it may well be that we could save money and lives by banning all fatty foods, but we don't do that because we prefer individual choice (and we should). So I thought kritiks would be a good thing for debate. Unfortunately, they've just become another form of generic argument. Plan-level kritiks are good, in my view. Even resolution-level kritiks can be interesting. Activity-level kritiks are abominable, in my view.

I was having a conversation with Will Repko, the debate coach at MSU (one of the major powerhouses of college debate) and a friend for 20 years, about this subject a few weeks ago. I think his argument against the Louisville project and its various offshoots is spot on. Those who do this are robbing students of one of the primary benefits of doing competitive debate - the enormous base of knowledge it gives you. It has been estimated that a year of serious competitive debate on a topic is the equivalent of getting a master's degree in that subject. It makes debaters fluent in a range of important policy issues. But all of that is ignored by those who wish only to argue about race in debate. They don't bother to engage the resolution at all, only the nature of the activity, so they don't get any of that benefit.

And as Will points out, there are a number of ways that those schools could address race within the boundaries of a topic and still give students the benefit of learning about that subject. Virtually every resolution has some racial component to it. For instance, this year's high school topic is alternative energy. An affirmative team could easily address racial disparities - the fact that refineries and highly polluting energy plants tend to have a disparate effect on the poor and minorities, for instance - within the confines of that subject. But the Louisville project folks don't do that, they have the exact same argument every single round, whether affirmative or negative: vote for us because we're black and we'll get more blacks in debate. They are being robbed of the opportunity that debate gives them by ignoring the important policy issues and focusing solely on race.

And here's the thing: that expertise in policy issues often translates into jobs that can effect policy. A huge number of debaters end up as policy analysts or legislative policy advisers. But because those kids haven't learned anything about the policy issues, they won't get those jobs. The project actually undermines their ability to affect policy in the future.

Posted by: Ed Brayton | August 17, 2008 5:48 PM

@Ed,
Very good point about the employment and educational downside of the Louisville project.

With regard to kritiks, when I was a high school debater, there were no kritiks, but it was certainly possible, and sometimes effective, to give the equivalent of one as a disadvantage. That is, one could certainly say: "Even if this solves the problem, it has the overwhelming disadvantage of being inconsistent with freedom of expression" or something like that.

Posted by: Bill Poser | August 17, 2008 6:32 PM

As soon as this started, I started yelling "BILL! BILL SHANAHAN!!"

He was a coach at a debate institute I went to at Dartmouth in 1990. I kept waiting for him to use his trademark phrase "a veritable fuckload."

Posted by: Hilary | August 17, 2008 8:25 PM

@Bill - As for winning defending anything other than the resolution, it depends on the judge. Bill Shanahan was, at the time I knew him, a famous tabula rasa judge, which means he begins the round with a clean slate of rules, and the debaters tell him which rules to use to vote. Apparently there was an uproar once because one team told him to vote on who had the best ties, and the other team did not answer the argument, so he voted on the ties. He defended his vote saying the other team had every opportunity to spend 5 seconds to say that was a ridiculous voting criteria, and he would have dropped it from consideration.

Posted by: Hilary | August 17, 2008 8:30 PM

Yeah, but think of the make up sex.

Posted by: Ick of the East | August 17, 2008 9:09 PM

@Hilary,

Well, call me a curmudgeon, but back when I was a debater (Vermont State Champion, 1973) the rules were set before the tournament, not at the beginning of each round. It worked quite nicely that way.

Posted by: Bill Poser | August 18, 2008 12:21 AM

Bill-

Was Tuna Snyder around in those days of Vermont debate?

Posted by: Ed Brayton | August 18, 2008 1:13 AM

@Bill- Wow, you make me look like a spring chicken! I debated high school in the 80's and a little college in the 90's.

My most valuable lesson in debate was...you win when the judge says you win. No matter how right you think you are, you have to convince the judge.

Answering every argument the other team comes up with, no matter how inane, doesn't hurt either.

Posted by: Hilary | August 18, 2008 8:14 AM

This is what happens when you fill a small room with this many pompous assholes.

Posted by: abe | August 18, 2008 10:05 AM

Warning META STUFF...

In the comments of the version I saw the overt racism aimed at Reid was horrendous. Starting here..BOTH coaches LOST IT. It was embarrassing. However, he was described as "an eccentric"...she a 'ghetto bitch.' And it devolved from there.

I don't understand the debate rules or culture -- so I don't wan't to take that on. But the angle that Reid and some other students were taking of bringing the discussion of 'white priveledge ' into the culture is important.

And what better example of 'white privledge' do we have but Bill. Now, I love eccentrics. I prefer them to most people. I've been called one myself. Let's play a game though.

Imagine Bill was black, imagine him sans shoes as Bill usually is, add a large unkempt afro, some shorts....now add him pulling his shorts down at a female peer showing his ass and his balls - flashing a room full of students.

Would we even for a second be talking about his 'brilliance' or his 'eccentricity' Or would at least some be saying "Who the hell let this guy teach? Look at what Affirmative Action has brought us...."

There are one set of rules for some people and another set for other people.

Now, back to the main show....

Posted by: CityzenJane | August 18, 2008 8:30 PM

sorry about the wacky punctuation....

Posted by: CityzenJane | August 18, 2008 8:32 PM

Bummer...the video has been removed from YouTube.

Posted by: David C. Brayton | August 19, 2008 1:03 AM