Falwell university debate team goal: conquer thine enemy
LYNCHBURG, Va. -- The football team doesn't have a prayer, and heaven knows the basketball team needs help. But the debate team at the Rev. Jerry Falwell's Liberty University looks like a mighty David in a land of rhetorical Goliaths.
Liberty's Christian conservatives regularly place at, or near, the top in the national policy debate rankings and can credibly argue the ''wrong" side of the issue, if necessary, on topics such as abortion and intelligent design.
Falwell sees the debate team's success as a way to put more messengers in the world for the religious right. More than 45 former members of the debate team have become lawyers during the 16 years that Brett O'Donnell has been coach, and Falwell expects some eventually will become judges. ''Every one of these 32 debaters is a committed Christian," the evangelist said in a recent interview. ''They will use their platforms to effect moral and social change."
Since Falwell founded Liberty in 1971, he has had a goal of putting the school on par with large church-affiliated universities such as Brigham Young and Notre Dame. Falwell said the debate team's success has helped advance Liberty's image academically and made the 23,000-student university attractive to high school students.
This year, Liberty became the first school to be ranked number one by all three national collegiate debate organizations.
In truth, Liberty's debaters rarely defeat head-to-head the giants of collegiate debate, which include
But Falwell was impressed enough to commit more money to the program, whose budget has gone from $14,000 a year when O'Donnell started to $500,000 this season. It now has a coaching staff of five and spacious quarters, and Liberty offers debate scholarships.
O'Donnell, himself a Liberty alumnus, advised President Bush's campaign during the debate preparations in 2004. (''I did a whole DVD on the poor nonverbal behavior the president had," he said.)
College debate teams argue various aspects of one topic all season -- this year, it was US-China relations -- and the rules of this intellectual exercise require that the debaters be prepared to argue either side of a question.
More than a decade ago, Liberty's students had to argue in support of abortion when the overall topic was privacy rights. Liberty finished in the top 10 nationally that year.
''Everybody knows it's a game," O'Donnell said. ''People don't suddenly think, 'Oh, Liberty's changed its position.' "
The Liberty students' lifestyle may even give them an edge in a morning round. Other teams ''do a lot more drinking and more partying," said Lindsey Hoban, a senior from Mount Ariel, Pa.
If anything, Liberty debate team members said, the exposure to others' perspectives has reinforced their own views.
''We're explaining our worldview to them without beating them over the head with the Bible," said Rachel Hassenpflug, a sophomore from Lynchburg. 