College Debate Is Ugly

“I still think that in going the way it has gone, policy debate has coarsened itself.” Mark Oppenheimer at Slate laments the exaggerated competition in once-civil team sports. “Beginning around 1970 it became specialized and opaque to outsiders, and around it a whole money-making complex of summer camps and research services arose. This troubles me, I now realize, because I think that the professionalization of American schoolboy and -girl activities is a bad thing. I think it’s too bad that even moderately ambitious soccer players attend soccer camps all summer long, specializing at a young age; I regret there are fewer multi-sport athletes than before, even if I never could have been one of them.”