Park City High School Debate Assistant Coach Preston Knutson is happy the school won Utah’s 4A Speech and Debate tournament by 14 points. Still, he said he’d be happier if they only won by only 10 points, and even happier if they won by a slimmer margin.
He’s happy to see where the team has come, and he hopes to see it face even harder competition in the future.
This year, the National Speech and Debate Association named Knutson the competition district’s Assistant Coach of the Year.
“I come from a very small speech and debate team. I did all four years in high school at Grantsville High School,” Knutson said.
His friend and fellow former Grantsville debater Gavin Serr — who struck fear into the hearts of Utah debaters throughout his own high school career — invited Knutson to Park City, where he became one of now seven assistant coaches who’ve worked to form Park City’s team into a force to be reckoned with in each debate event.
“Since joining them, it’s honestly been phenomenal to see the passion and strife of these students,” Knutson said.
Coaching speech and debate for an academically high-achieving school, he said it often feels like the school goes into tournaments already carrying an advantage into a pretty-surefire win.
That, however, doesn’t always prove to be the case.
“It’s just interesting to see these students go against other academically superior students and to grow and evolve in that learning space,” he said. “It’s been really, really phenomenal just to see them and how much they’ve grown and really sharpen their critical thinking skills.”
Knutson specifically coaches students in International Extemporaneous Speaking, an event where they are given three questions about current world events. Students pick one of the questions and have 30 minutes to prepare a seven-minute speech answering the question.
They memorize statistics, facts and information about the issue they are discussing, and then they give the speech from memory.
“I’m gifted in that the students that I receive for the most part are already very academically blessed. They’re individuals who are already very socially aware of what’s happening in the world and are able to connect the dots very easily,” Knutson said.
He explained that while he’s helped a handful of students who performed well in Extemporaneous Speaking, he feels he really benefits the team by helping students perform well in Congressional Debate, an event where “students essentially role play as congressmen and congresspeople.”
They read bills, follow rules of decorum and engage their fellow congress members.
“I think the biggest contribution I’ve made to both the extemp and the congress side of things is getting these students to see that the competitors and the individuals that they interact with inside of debate are all just friends,” he said. “We all are just growing and learning together, we all are just shooting for that gold.”
Senior Debater Zach Minter — who helped the team reach gold by placing third in Foreign Extemporaneous Speaking and third in Public Forum debate — recalled his introduction to the debate team during his sophomore year.
“I literally walked into the debate room to say ‘hi’ to one of my friends, and then they were like, ‘Oh, do you want to join debate?’ I was like, ‘No, not really.'” he said. “But then they were like, ‘Oh, we’ll give you pop tarts and some other snacks,’ and I was like, ‘Okay.'”
One tournament turned to two, then three and eventually he was on the team for the rest of his high school years.
As its name suggests, Public Forum is a debate event meant to remain accessible. The subject of debate changes monthly, and competitors prepare to debate in favor or opposition of resolutions pending a coin flip. Minter said he’s come to appreciate strategies that helped him frame his arguments so that any benefits his side provided should be prioritized above those presented by his opponents. If his arguments meant housing affordability, he tried to convince the judge home ownership was the most important factor in the round. If his arguments lent themselves strongly to improving conditions for individuals, suddenly quality of life became the most important thing, and he told the judge why.
“It’s just like building a narrative and a story throughout every single one of your cases,” he said.
Izzy Morris — Minter’s Public Forum partner at the state tournament — also competed in Foreign Extemporaneous Speaking and took first in the state.
Morris took a debate class as a freshman but didn’t join the official team until she became a sophomore. While Minter was lured in with Pop-Tarts, she initially took the class because her brother told her it was an easy A.
She found that she enjoyed it, and the teacher told her to join. So she did.
As a senior, this year, she was one of the team’s two captains.
“I feel like it was one of the first opportunities I had had in an academic setting to explore international issues and philosophical issues at that level,” she said. “Being a freshman, I had never experienced any forum to explore and discuss those types of things before.”
She’s bounced around several events, placing first in last year’s state competition in Informative Speaking and second in Lincoln-Douglas debate. She moved to Public Forum just this year and “got thrown into” Foreign Extemporaneous Speaking.
Through their extensive debate-oriented research, both Morris and Minter have found topics they are passionate about.
Minter said he’s grown to understand a greater need for student loan forgiveness to provide people with accessible education, and Morris has found an interest in philosophy and economics.
“I feel like academically and intellectually no one had ever believed in me or told me I was smart enough,” Morris said, “until I joined the debate team and until Miss Williams gave me that affirmation.”
Anna Williams — the team’s head coach of only two years — gave several examples of things she’s done to encourage a strong team community in a competition where individuals compete.
Throughout the year, she said she’s worked to form teams with one experienced debater and one newcomer, explaining that the best way to learn is in round.
Before state, she told her kids everything was practice, and at state she told them their individual placement wasn’t the biggest factor — it was all about earning points for the team.
“Then we were all rooting for each other,” she said.
While some schools’ debate teams keep their arguments concealed from each other, her teams shared their cases and put up a unified front.
Next year, she plans to establish a relationship with the school’s drama department to bolster her program’s speech events, advertise the benefits of debate to eighth graders in the school district and maintain the school’s robust reputation as strong debaters.
“I have so much faith in what this program provides to kids, not only academically, but what I have seen firsthand is the means by which this activity provides kids who are neurodivergent with a safe space in which they are celebrated,” Williams said. “That’s really important to me, and so important to me that I’m not going to leave the program anytime soon.”