On Dec. 14, the McLean debate team was looking to compete in the virtual WACFL 3 debate competition alongside dozens of other local schools. WACFL, which stands for the Washington-Arlington Catholic Forensic League, hosts several events throughout the year in and around the Washington metropolitan area. The competition was originally scheduled to start at 11:15 a.m., but faced issues with the online software used for the tournament.
“There were a lot of technical issues when I was attending, especially with the video calls, so it was essentially impossible to continue on with the tournament,” junior Michael Jiang said.
As round one started, some teams were able to compete and others could not start at all. WACFL eventually cancelled the first round and attempted to begin the second one. The second round also faced issues and started 30 minutes later, causing WACFL to cancel the entire tournament.
“I just think this whole thing was really irresponsible because nobody thought that it would be a bad idea for over 1000 kids to all go to different calls at the same time,” freshman Ishha Sandhu said.
Before for the competition, the 20 members participating had made extensive preparations, with high hopes for a good result. The team was already familiar with the topic, having debated the topic for two previous tournaments over the past two months.
“We did this topic for the tournament before, so we had all of the cases and everything set,” Sandhu said. “Me and a lot of other people also stayed up until 4 a.m. finishing work the night before.”
As such, many competitors were disappointed over the cancellation of the tournament.
“When I found out, I was really surprised,” Sandhu said. “I really think the tournament shouldn’t have been cancelled because so many people put time and effort and changed their priorities for the week, just for nothing in the end.”
Since the competition was cancelled, team members can only look forward to upcoming local tournaments, which will be in-person instead. The next WACFL competition will occur on Jan. 11, 2025 for Lincoln-Douglas debaters and Jan. 25, 2025 for Public Forum debaters.
“We still have a lot of opportunities to participate in future WACFL tournaments,” Jiang said. “Our team is still strong and ready to compete with others.”
