Phoenix’s competitive Debate team has an outstanding record, placed as 4th in the city of Chicago. Behind the scenes, senior Terena Clemons works tirelessly to improve her team’s record. Their last season’s  record was good, but this year their  record could leave their doubters speechless.

“We have won 1 tournament this year and we got 4th place in the city and we have competed in 2 national tournaments,” said Clemons.

With the team’s success also comes a lot of preparing outside of school.

“It’s kind of complicated, but the shortened version of it is we look at other team’s plans and we make defensive arguments against them while making offensive arguments in favor of our own,” said Clemons.

Some students have a hard time doing homework, let a lone extra work for an activity. Also many of the debaters have AP classes, which also demand a lot of time and attention.  

Clemons described managing her time as ”very difficult, because unlike any other sport- I have to put so much mental time into it, that it feels like another class instead of a hobby, in addition debate weekends last until Saturday night around 10 and they start at 7:30 in the morning both Friday and Saturday.”

Fortunately, the debaters do receive class credit for their time invested in the team.