MTA Excels at the Annual Great Debate

by Yosef Lemel (’17)

On Sunday afternoon, MTA hosted the 28th annual Great Debate, which has been a longstanding tradition in MTA. On average it hosts the most debaters and some of the most sensational and competitive debates coming from the most experienced debaters in the league. Instead of the standard two-round system, the Great Debate has three rounds.

The topic debated this year was whether the Electoral College should be abolished. This topic emerged at the top of the list of potential topics for the tournament because the popular vote had a different outcome than the Electoral College in the most recent US presidential election. (For more information on the Electoral College, see the article that was written for last week’s Novice Debate.)

With the debaters preparing months in advance, MTA was ready to take home several awards. After three heated and exciting rounds of debate, the scores were finally announced. The overall win/loss record for MTA was 9-3! Yosef Lemel (’17) and Ben Tzion Zuckier (’17) took second place trophies with a perfect 3-0 record, while Aharon Goldstein (’19) and Noam Mayerfeld (’19) also had a perfect 3-0 record. Ben Tzion Zuckier ended up with the first place award for individual speaker! In the extemporaneous speaking competition, Akiva Cooper (’18) won a third place trophy for the team!

Thank you to all the judges, debaters, schedule makers, coaches, timekeepers, and of course, Mrs. Levitt! The team hopes to do even better next year!