Bellarmine’s policy debaters at the James Logan Tournament; photo taken by Oliver Chen ’25
by Andrew Lei ’27
New Year’s is a time of resolution and reflection, but for Bellarmine’s Speech and Debate team, the process of setting goals and balancing the ups and downs has been going on since August.
Riding off a victorious performance at the most recent State and National Tournaments, the program and its members jumped back into action in the 2024-2025 school year as new captains took the helm, novel debate topics were introduced, and curious freshmen explored the extracurricular for the first time through Rhetoric.
Now, having checked off the first semester of the school year, Bellarmine has participated in numerous travel tournaments, including the Glenbrooks Tournament, the CSU Long Beach Tournament, and the Greenhill Fall Classic. At these nation-wide competitions, Bellarmine has secured a top 7 finalist in Original Oratory, a quarterfinalist in Informative Speaking, and multiple high placements in Congressional and Policy debate.
Of course, much of this is attributed to the program’s director, Mr. Langerman. He told me how in his eyes, it’s astonishing how far Bellarmine has come since he acquired the position almost a decade ago. Where in the past, it was an amazing feat for even one speech and debater to go far in Policy Debate or Original Speaking, Bellarmine now maintains continued excellence across the board, scoring both state and national recognition as one of, if not the best place for high schoolers to hone their public speaking skills in the entire country.
Last month, the over 216 members on the Speech and Debate team, including 123 varsity competitors and 93 novices, competed in the local CFL Speech 2 and CFL Congress 2 tournaments–regular, annual events that draw in schools from all across the Bay Area.
Bellarmine consistently enters in the most competitive events with the most entries–this time around, there were 177 competitors in Impromptu, 134 in Original Oratory, and over 50 in each of the Extemporaneous Speaking Events. In each of these fields, Bells secured the best school-wide results, getting the most Wildcards or top 7 placements. In fact, in International Extemp, all of the top 7 finalists were from Bellarmine!
The work of the team’s newest additions, the class of 2028, have also not gone unnoticed. At the recent CFL Novice Debate tournament, Bell freshmen secured 4/6 undefeated records in Policy Debate and 3/6 in Lincoln Douglas Debate, more than any other school. Three freshmen went on to secure wildcards at the varsity tournament just a day later, rounding off a strong school-wide performance with a promising future.
(Thank you Mr. Langerman for your input!)
But the most important part of the Speech and Debate team is growth. Here are some reflections from members of the team as they look to a new semester.
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Adyant Bhavsar ‘28
What’s your background for S&D before you came to Bellarmine?
I competed a lot in Speech and Debate before I came to Bellarmine, especially in Lincoln-Douglas debate and Extemporaneous Speaking. I’ve been competing for about 4 years now, which has helped me develop a passion and love for the activity that I want to continue here at Bell.
What did you hope to see from the Rhetoric and how much has your perspective changed since then?
I hoped to gain a further understanding on how to express myself more effectively, and I feel like Rhetoric was the perfect way for me to do so in a supporting environment with a brilliant teacher [Mr. Langerman] who could offer invaluable advice. For example, he taught us how to create impromptu speeches on the spot, which improved my spontaneous thinking as well as my ability to speak clearly and effectively to engage the audience.
What’s been your favorite memory from Speech and Debate so far?
In the last six months, one of my favorite memories has been going to League 2 Speech with all my new freshmen friends and varsity members; being able to apply the skills that I learned in a interschool competitive environment was invaluable and I ended up not only making it to finals, but also achieving a top 7 finish and winning a wildcard to the state qualifiers!
How was your experience at the final Rhetoric speech/debate tournaments?
I was up against people who I trained and studied with, so I was really excited to debate them in a friendly way. We were able to put to use the skills we had learned throughout the semester, and it paid off in the end when me and my partner won the whole thing!
What are you looking forward to in the future?
I look forward to getting to know the rest of the team better, going to more tournaments, and competing, as well as tapping into the insight of the captains and coaches so I can improve as a debater and a speaker overall.
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Andres Ryan ‘26
When did you start Speech and Debate? How important has Bellarmine been in this process?
I started my freshman year first semester in Rhetoric, and it’s been really important to me. I spend a lot of hours every week cutting cards and preparing for tournaments–an average of 1-2 hours every day the past few months. It’s really provided a sense of community and belonging.
How has your S&D journey evolved in these last three years?
First, I’ve gotten better at it, but also my relationship with it has changed. I’ve dedicated and shaped my effort into more productive ways instead of just doing work for the sake of doing work. Also, I’ve grown closer to others throughout the journey through travel tournaments like going to Chicago and Central California for States.
What has been one moment of growth for you?
In Long Beach Round 4, we lost a debate round that I think we should have won. I made a mistake that if I had addressed, we would’ve won the round and possibly got our first bid to the Tournament of Champions. Unfortunately, I made a catastrophic error that lost us the round. This taught me that paying close attention to detail shapes my future, and it’s the work you put in through the course of the season that determines your success. Last year, a Bellarmine debater Surya Krishnapalli told me something–there’s this thing called the law of big numbers. Even if you get unlucky and disadvantaged a couple of times, those are the outliers for the worse. However, consequently, they’re going to be outliers for the better in the future and individual numbers that fall along the trend of improvement.
What is one highlight this year specifically?
Going to Glenbrooks about a month ago, after we were one of the five junior teams in the whole nation to break at the tournament. We toured Chicago and went on the riverwalk as a team–me and 30 other speech and debaters, including our coaches, Doctor Sullivan and Mr. DeLateur.
What are you looking forward to in S&D in the future?
Not only improving my skills but also shaping my own work and targeting it for the better; doing prep in the most productive ways; and reaching a new level of competitiveness and success nationally that we haven’t seen before. Also, growing with other people throughout our journey.
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Mr. Liu – S&D Coach
What’s your involvement in Bellarmine’s Speech and Debate programs?
I am the Assistant Director of Forensics and one of the Assistant Speech and Debate coaches here. I coach public forum with Mr. Kistler; I also coach Interpretation events, and I’m the head coach there. I’m also responsible for organizing all of our Tab secretaries and entering in all our entries. I am often tasked with running a plethora of tournaments, including but not limited to the California State Tournament, the National Tournament for Speech and Debate, the Tournament of Champions, and almost all of our local League Tournaments.
How has this past year gone for Bellarmine?
I think we definitely have much to work on! We need to make sure that we’re competitive and securing wildcards in certain events like Interpretation which I coach. Folks need to work on practicing much more. There’s a lot more work to do! The season has not gone as amazing as we would’ve hoped.
What are some goals the team has set for the future?
First of all, getting a policy card or cards would be nice. I think another one is really qualifying QUALITY students to States and Nationals. Another good goal is making sure that we are improving our delivery skills–these are skills that we often struggle with, whether that’s Interp or elsewhere. A lot of people struggle with presenting their speeches in a good way.
What is one piece of advice you would give to current debaters or anyone interested in joining?
The one that I would give for current debaters is to debate with conviction and speak with conviction. I think that oftentimes, our delivery isn’t very good, and I know that we often need to work to get that better, but part of that is also confidence. The second is practice–swimmers don’t get good by waving their arms outside the water; they get good by actually getting into the pool. Speech and Debaters get good with practice rounds, working on delivery, and constantly practicing.
For the new folks, I think it would be a good idea to join Speech and Debate! We have a home for everyone–for the actors, we have Interp; for those who love current events, Congress and Extemp; those who want to write a speech, OO, OA, all those events; so on, and so forth.
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But 2024 is long and gone. A new year means new opportunities for Bellarmine’s Speech and Debate team–chances to excel, and more importantly, grow through hard work and team spirit.