The Tournament of Champions 2019

Pinkey Lam, Staff Reporter|June 30, 2019

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Pinkey Lam

Nathan Felmus ’19. is strongly supportive of the Speech & Debate program, given the valuable skills that the program teaches to its participants.

The Tournament of Champions (TOC) is an annual national high school debate tournament held at the University of Kentucky. This year marks the 48th year since TOC has been created. Every debater or team of debaters typically need at least two bids from the competing year to participate in the tournament. David Arnett, Director of Debate at UK and Dr. J.W. Patterson, TOC Tournament Founder, welcome all championship competitors to a weekend long tournament in Lexington, Kentucky. Typically held around the last week of April, debaters from all over the country travel to engage in the most competitive and prestigious tournament of the year.

“Through debate, I have learned to look at issues from multiple angles. When debating something, whether relevant or obscure, it’s always really fun for me to learn about what different experts think and form my own opinions,” said Nathan Felmus ’19.

This year, Bronx Science had over fifteen of its students compete at TOC. Our team had an outstanding number of debaters that advanced in the tournament. In Congress, competing and P.O.ing in finals, Nathan Felmus ’19 placed second Jonathan Bar-On ’20 competed to finals. “Getting second was one of the proudest, if not the proudest, moment of my career. I have dedicated my heart, soul, blood, sweat, and tears to debate for the last four years, and being recognized for that made me feel so gratified. It justified all of my hard work, and it was amazing to see that it paid off,” said Felmus ’19.

“Through debate, I have learned to look at issues from multiple angles,” said Nathan Felmus ’19.

Also in Congress, Sydney Teh ‘19, Mary Tyrrell ’19, Arjun Mazumdar ’21, and Garreth Hui ’20 reached the semifinals round. In the Silver Division for Public Forum, Andrew Kamen ’19 and Zayaan Shariff ’19 competed to semifinals while Alex Ellerstein ’19 and Eli Zerof ’19 competed to quarters. In the Gold Division for Public Forum, Ben Oestericher ’20 and Elias Silver ’20 competed to double octofinals. The season proved to be very successful for everyone on the team!