On the day of his first freshman debate tournament, junior Lincoln-Douglas (LD) debate captain Atharva Srivastava just got lucky. He won his first round by saying whatever came to mind, and as the rounds went on, it just got easier—and his confidence only grew. Over his past two years as a varsity debater, Atharva placed highly in numerous in-state and out-of-state tournaments and earned a bid to the “Tournament of Champions,” (TOC) which is considered to be the national championship of high school debate. Srivastava will travel to Kentucky for the tournament in April.
“[When I joined] I found it pretty entertaining,” Atharva said. “I’ve always just been a competitive person. Physically, you have boxing or fighting which are like the ultimate forms of one on one competition, academically, debate would be the ultimate form.”
Atharva started competing in the novice division his freshman year, and became a varsity debater his sophomore year.
“I was terrible my freshman year,” Srivastava said. “I was also pretty bad my sophomore year. I was better, but I didn’t really find competitive success until this year.”
Atharva placed highly at numerous tournaments during his sophomore year, but that wasn’t enough—he wanted to win big, and that took practice.
“[Debate] is my favorite activity,” Srivastava said. “[Debate] is what I did all the time. [Debate] was more fun to me than playing video games or whatever. I would always be hitting up my friends and they would get annoyed with me with how much I was asking them to have a round of debate with me.”
Atharva attended debate camps over the summer, where he learned that just practicing was squeezing water from a stone.
“[At camp] it got instilled in me that just practicing rounds isn’t enough,” Srivastava said. “You also need to do more research, because obviously debate is a very research based activity. Just practicing one thing without having an intent for what you’re trying to get better at is just mindless; I wasn’t getting better at anything.”
Because of this, Atharva now prepares for tournaments and competitions by heavily studying both sides of the argument, so no matter which way it goes, he’ll be alright.
“I research so I know what they’re gonna be saying and so I’ll know I have to make some answers to them and practice speeches against that,” Srivastava said. “So that way, when the time actually comes in a real round, I’m prepared for it, and it goes well.”
Atharva’s most recent tournament in preparation for the TOC was at Harvard, where he placed in the top 32.
“[The Harvard tournament] was alright,” Srivastava said. “If I got the same result like three months ago, I’d be jumping for joy, but [now] I’m trying to go one step ahead. I’m trying to win some big tournaments now”
Atharva’s highest ranking over the last year was #1 in Texas, and #6 in the United States, Canada and Taiwan.
“A lot of our underclassmen see the success that he’s having, and they want it,” debate coach Johnathen Standifer said. “So it’s not just like ‘Oh, we could be good. Oh, I guess we could achieve these things.’ They see him being it. They see someone from our school [winning], and they go think ‘I can do that.’”
Through his experience in LD debate, Atharva frequently lectures at debate practices for up to an hour and a half. According to freshman Anshul Pancholi, even in a five minute conversation, Atharva “can squeeze in as much information as necessary.”
“I like teaching the novices,” Atharva said. “I remember when I was a freshman the seniors were a huge help to me and I like knowing that I’m helping the future of our team.”
Many novice LD debaters view Atharva as their most trusted resource when researching for competitions.
“I shoot [Atharva] questions all the time,” Pancholi said. “It’s kind of like a tough love scenario. Because he’s hard on us, but only because he wants us to grow a lot.”
Standifer says Atharva does this all, teaching, training and dominating competitions, all on his own, without having to ask him.
“I specifically came here to work with this team.” Standifer said. “It’s a very successful program. It’s been really cool to step into that, play with that, work with that—and Atharva has been a huge part of that, he’s been a huge help.”
“It’s kind of been insane here in the last year, coming out of his sophomore year [and] coming into his junior year, he really, really locked in and found a passion for it,” Standifer said. “He will spend hours, he will stay up all night doing stuff, he will come up to school the next week with stuff ready to go and start teaching classes and doing stuff.”
