Barlow Dominant in Debate Over Punishment

In 1809, Joel Barlow affirmed his belief in the sanctity of all human life by expressing his revulsion at the killing of native peoples by the British:

"But of all tales that war's black annals hold,
The darkest foulest still remains untold;
New modes of torture wait the shameful strife,
And Britain wantons in the waste of life"

And this past Saturday, students from the school bearing his name made much the same point, winning first place at a debate tournament, arguing against the death penalty.

It was the season opener and the best attended tournament in the history of the Connecticut Debate Association. There were 232 debaters from 22 public, parochial, and private schools who gathered at Stamford's Academy of Information Technology and Engineering. Joel Barlow High School won five trophies, including the first-place varsity team award, continuing a  tradition of excellence that has brought the team three state championship titles in the past four years.

It was the first varsity outing for Barlow's wunderkinds, Nicolo Marzaro and Brendan Coppinger, who blazed undefeated through three preliminary rounds arguing both sides of whether or not to keep capital punishment on the books in Connecticut. Their combined speaker points were high enough to earn them a spot in the final exhibition round. Winning the coin toss, they chose the side of their conscience.

Although visibly nervous, speaking in front of hundreds of debaters, parents, and coaches gathered in the courtyard of the school, Coppinger and Marzaro quickly found their rhythm facing down a smoother pair of girls from Glastonbury.

Their style is a sleepy, undecorated rhetoric, punctuated with bits of a dry Bob Newhart-like wit. In cross-examination, Coppinger stumped his opponents into silence by getting straight to the heart of the matter, "what do you do if you find out that you have executed someone who was actually innocent?"

Countering the objection that prisoners lead lives of comfort and leisure, Marzaro got a chorus of laughs when he  pointed out that it would be easy to reform prisons to make it more unpleasant. "We can take away baseball, television, and phone privileges from the worst offenders. Okay, maybe not Jenga, but you can still get retribution without having the death penalty."

Like Joel Barlow argued centuries ago, the pair framed their case with the premise that the sanctity of all life must be protected. And their primary point, that "death has no undo button," was left unaddressed by their opponents, so they won over the panel of five coaches, taking the top honor of the day.

Their remarkable achievement continues a distinguished career which began last year, when as first-year novices, they became the first pair in Barlow history to go undefeated in all regular season tournaments.

Also honored were senior Alex Cheu and sophomore, Daanish Siddiqi. The pair went undefeated, earning the fourth-place varsity team award. Their plucky optimism combined with policy wonkery found favor with judges. This was Cheu's third career trophy.

Barlow veterans were remarkably dominant in the varsity field, with nine finishing among the top thirty speakers. Marzaro led the pack, earning the third-place varsity speaker award. Others in the top thirty included juniors Alex Cheu and Brendan Coppinger, senior David Kang, junior Cormac Cummiskey, senior Sam Torchio and junior Ben Lewson, sophomore Daanish Siddiqi and senior Henry Knight.

Strong 2-1 performances were turned in by many veterans, including senior co-captains, Henry Knight and Sam Torchio, seniors Emma Tower and Morgan Jordan, David Kang, Matt DiPalma as well as juniors Ben Lewson and Stephen Tschudi.

Sophomore Brendan O'Connor and junior Cooper D'Agostino managed to beat Pomperaug in round two and Cooper got a nearly-perfect 29 in round two. Seniors Devin Mahoney and James Kulowiec fought valiantly, but were not as lucky as the others.

The tournament also saw the debut of six Barlow novices, many of whom are the siblings of past Barlow leaders. Freshmen Sam Aldershof and Peter Gombos picked up a win in round one against Staples. Sophomore Carl Goldstein along with freshmen Brooke Curto, Harrison vonDwingelo and Will Tower worked hard and learned a lot from their first experiences in debate.

Barlow will debate again on Nov. 12 and they look forward to hosting their fifth annual tournament on Dec. 10.