Note: if you have questions you’d like us to ask, you can submit them here, and we’ll ask them during the next set of tourney interviews!

Finalist Interview

Question: How was your CPS tournament experience? Did you expect such a great performance?
Jack Stern: The tournament was a lot of fun because I got to see a lot of my friends that I hadn’t seen in a while. Additionally, winning is fun, so while I didn’t expect to do this well (especially because I hadn’t attended a tournament in over a month before this), that definitely improved my experience.

Q: What were the common arguments, and what did you expect? What didn’t you expect?
JS: Honestly, I was expecting to see a lot more Affs that would specify a subset of plea bargaining to abolish, but the expected arguments like Court Clog and T – Abolish, plus whole res Affs were 90% of what I faced. That said, Whit Jackson definitely deserves a mention here for reading Curry’s Paradox and T – A White Horse Is Not a Horse against me in what was one of the most fun rounds I’ve had all year.

Q: What happened in that round that drew such a response?
JS: Even though I was expecting to hit some interesting positions in response to the Sexual Assault Aff that I read, I was caught off guard when Whit’s 1NC was 5 off, including: Curry’s Paradox (if this sentence is true, you should vote Neg) and T – White Horse (he carded Gongsun Long’s White Horse Dialog to say that abolishing a subset of plea bargaining is entirely distinct from abolishing plea bargaining because a white horse is entirely distinct from a horse. In the 1AR, I responded by reading a theory shell that says that debaters can’t read more than 3 off cases, and I always enjoy rounds where I get to read strategic theory (I also read font size theory against Harvard-Westlake in one of the rounds, and hopefully they will keep all font size 8 or larger in the future).

Q: Wow, that’s quite an innovative approach to the theory meta. How do you think theory will play out on this JanFeb topic?
JS: Obviously I’m biased towards theory, but I certainly hope that it plays a larger role than it currently is. I think that the question of whether or not Aff can specify a type of plea bargaining is important to have, but it seemed like at CPS, there was just kind of a consensus that Aff should have to be whole res, but I imagine that as people innovate, topicality will become more popular against this. I do certainly hope that arguments like brackets theory (I am 10-2 in rounds where I’ve read brackets theory this year, and I believe that it is definitely a true argument) make a comeback, so hopefully other debaters will increase the amount of theory that they read on JanFeb, as even shells like “No Neg Fiat” and “Font Size Theory” can lead to some very fun rounds.

Q:  As usual, any issues or things you feel strongly about or would like to discuss?
JS: Really want to congratulate Danielle. This was her (I think) 5th tournament win this year, and it certainly makes losing feel a lot better when it happens against someone of her caliber. Additionally, she had to miss her first 2 rounds, and not only did she still manage to still not drop a ballot, and David was supporting all of Immaculate Heart’s debaters, which really shows how dedicated of a coach he is, and I’m glad that she was still able to dominate.

Thanks so much to Jack for sharing his perspective with the community! If you appreciate these interviews, please leave us some feedback (either in this survey or in the comments below).