HAPPY NEW YEAR! REFLECTIONS OF 2011


2011 was the best year yet for the urban debate league in New York City! High School seniors Stephon Adams & Devonte Escoffery of the Metropolitan Corporate Academy qualified for the Tournament of Champions! Also, at the Tournament of Champions, Seniors Damiyr Davis and Miguel Feliciano of the Beacon School who had started with our urban debate league as freshmen also qualified for the Tournament, were the top seed after preliminary rounds (undefeated at 7-0), and Damiyr became the first African American to win the Top Speaker at the Tournament! Two NYCUDL middle school teams also made history by breaking into quarterfinals at the National Junior Forensics League Championship. Petergaye Laine of the Bronx School for Law also took Third Place Best Speaker in the nation! NYCUDL debaters have proudly represented New York City schools at nearly every Northeastern tournament and have either won or placed in the elimination rounds everywhere including Yale, Harvard, Lexington, Georgetown, Newark, New York City, Ridge, and more! At the local level with a new organization and new website we have expanded to ever more schools, and added an after school debate league! So we can't wait for what 2012 brings!


NYCUDL GOES


VARSITY! On December 10th, 2011, the urban debate league movement in New York made another milestone by adding the Varsity division to EVERY NYCUDL TOURNAMENT! We had a small but highly competitive Varsity division featuring teams from Bronx Law, Brooklyn Tech, Banneker, and ACORN. The LGJ team of Charles Athanasopolous & Geordano Liriano were the only undefeated team and won 1st place and also won 1st and 4th place speaker awards. Brooklyn Tech’s Jeffrey Chui & Dominic Dipasquale took 2nd place. Jeffrey also took 2nd place overall best speaker! And Bronx Law’s Betty Mahmud and Nevia Gallimore took 3rd place. Betty also took 3rd Place Best Speaker. Brooklyn Tech’s Aamnah Khan and Kayla Thomas took 4th place best team award. Congratulations to all our Varsity Debaters, keep it up! We also hope to reach another milestone at our next tournament on January 7th at Brooklyn Tech by adding not just one new division, but two new divisions! We hope to split our Middle School tournament into Novice and Varsity and add a Junior Varsity Division at our High School Tournament!


NYCUDL DOMINANCE CONTINUES!


In our last newsletter we


noted the dominance of the NYCUDL in the Northeast.


“Yale. Georgetown. Metro Hudson Debate League. Brooklyn Queens


Catholic Forensics League. New York Catholic Forensics League. New York City Invitational. NYCUDL teams have won everywhere!”


December was no


exception. At Ridge, Brooklyn Tech won 1st place in the Varsity Division AND their Novice teams reached the Semifinals and the Quarterfinals!


Later that month at the


NYC Catholic Debate League, three NYCUDL teams went undefeated across two divisions and took 2nd place top team in Novice and 3rd place top team in Varsity as well as a bunch of speaker awards!


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