After over two months of traveling the country competing at other school’s tournaments, Westwood was finally ready to host its own. On Saturday, Nov. 9, the school saw students flood into its doors as competitors from San Antonio, Pflugerville, Round Rock, and Austin ISD came together for Westwood’s annual debate tournament, the Westwood Bowl. The event encompassed cohesive competitive events, key networking opportunities, and a small fundraising effort — with funds raised from entree fees going towards supporting the team. By the end of the night, $6,000 was raised, 224 competitors had given over 1,000 speeches, and countless memories were made for the Westwood Speech and Debate community.  

However, although many students note that this tournament brought about such a large  community impact, they remain unaware of the fact that it almost never happened. Three weeks before the Westwood Bowl was scheduled, Speech and Debate Coach Dominic Henderson was facing planning challenges on all fronts. 

“We didn’t have the entrees, the staff, and frankly the energy,” Coach Henderson said. “At times I was worried that we would scrap the entire thing.” 

In the end, these challenges weren’t tackled by just one man, but by the entire team. 

“Every day, the Speech block was so demanding,” Arnav Maskey ‘26. “We were always cutting new questions for the Extemporaneous Speaking [event], finding judges for the Debate [events], and convincing each other to take an extra shift at the tournament.” 

Looking back at the final turnout and successes of the event, the team concludes that their hard work paid off. To combat the major issue of minimal projected attendees, the team worked to increase advertising, grow their hardworking base of volunteers, and prompt coaches to make last minute registrations of their teams for the tournament. At last, entrees began pouring in. 

When the day finally arrived, student volunteers were able to run the entire tournament seamlessly. 

“We had hundreds of high schoolers showing up in the cafeteria all waiting to be assigned pairings and get directions on where their round was,” Rheya Kurian ‘26 said. “I was able to help Coach Henderson out by managing Tabroom to make sure competitors were matched to rounds, judges were entered, and made sure the entire thing didn’t blow up.” 

Students didn’t just help with logistics however. Many seasoned debaters were also able to find an outlet for their passion for the field that went beyond event planning and execution. During the course of the event, many speech and debate members offered their insight and advice to younger participants, using their years of experience to serve as mentors. 

“We had a lot of novices at the start that didn’t have judges,” Ian Xu ‘26 said. “So I volunteered as a varsity member to help judge the younger competitors. When I was a freshman, the best way I was able to grow was through solid feedback from the older competitors, and volunteering made me feel like I was completing the cycle.” 

Even after the event culminated, the planning team realized that their job wasn’t over yet. After a long day of coordination and competition, student volunteers were still willing to make the extra effort to stay until the very end of the tournament to help wrap and clean the entire thing up. 

“Debate competitors aren’t [typically] known for our attention to cleanliness,” Michael Qu ‘27 said. “I made sure that after all the debates finished in the F wing, that the rooms were cleaned and ready for school the next day. It’s thankless work, but when I was done I felt proud of having done it and also gained a new respect for our janitors.” 

With all the facets of  the tournament wrapped up and the event being deemed a success by all who participated, Coach Henderson felt a sense of relief and happiness that not only were his fears proved unfounded, but he, with the help of his student volunteers, was able to make the most of the situation and produce what ended up being a successful event.

 “I can count the number of hours of sleep I got this weekend with my two hands,” Coach Henderson said. “But when I look back at the memories of seeing novices making it to their first outrounds, varsity members supporting each other the entire day, and the community coming together during this politicized time to have civil debates based on facts and logic, it really made me happy to be the coach [here] at Westwood.”