During the 2020-2021 virtual school year, the Washington-Arlington Catholic Forensic League conducted their debate and speech tournaments online for the first time, due to COVID-19 concerns. For both new and experienced debaters, this was an unfamiliar experience, and junior Harshit Pottipati was no exception.

Lincoln-Douglas debater Pottipati began his debate career at the beginning of the 2020-2021 school year as a sophomore, first competing at the novice level. “I heard a lot of good experiences [from people] in debate,” Pottipati said. Over the course of the year, Pottipati competed in multiple tournaments, participating in junior varsity competitions for the majority of the year before eventually competing at the varsity level near the end of the school year. “[In] varsity, everyone is extremely prepared and everyone is on top of their game,” Pottipati said. “A single mistake can give you the loss.” 

After his success in qualifying for the varsity team, Pottipati was able to earn himself a spot in the  Metrofinals, a Metropolitan regional champions tournament in March that debaters can qualify for by performing well in the WACFL tournaments. “I didn’t do too well [in the Junior Varsity Metrofinals], but I viewed JV Metros as more of a learning experience,” Pottipati said

Within debate, there are three types of tournaments that students can participate in: Public Forum, a two-on-two debate about current issues that uses logic and evidence to create and support arguments; Lincoln-Douglas, a one-on-one debate focused on ethical values and morals; and Student Congress, where students impersonate as members of congress and address legislature issues. Students are able to select one of the types of tournaments that they would like to participate and compete in throughout the year.

“I geared more towards Lincoln-Douglas, because I enjoyed the philosophy and morality aspect of it,” Pottipati said. “I did consider going into [Public Forum] briefly.”

Debate tournaments cause many participants to be nervous during the beginning, especially for first timers like Pottipati at his first debate tournament. “I was honestly really nervous [for the competition], because I’ve never debated before,” Pottipati said. “I didn’t feel that confident, which I think is pretty natural.” However, at his first tournament, his lack of confidence slowly faded away as the tournament progressed. “Generally, people are really nervous [for] their first round, but then by the end of it, they’re pretty confident in their cases.” 

Pottipati ended his first tournament with two rounds won and two rounds lost. “I just kind of viewed the first tournament as a learning experience,” Pottipati. “I didn’t really care too much about the results because I knew it was my first one. There wasn’t really that much pressure I put on myself.”

Pottipati has decided to continue participating in Lincoln-Douglas debate for the 2021-2022 school year, and has competed in three WACFL competitions thus far — WACFL 1, WACFL 2 and WACFL 3 — which were held online.