Stephen F. Austin State University

For two Stephen F. Austin State University graduate students, an interest that began as a extracurricular activity has developed into a career goal.

When Chris Duerringer was earning his bachelor's degree at SFA, he planned to major and enjoy a career in computer science. His decision to join the debate team came after a friend asked him to come and help judge the team at a tournament.

"I watched a few rounds, and thought, 'Hey, I can do that,'" the Kingwood native recalled. "I joined the team and wound up serving as president for two years."

Despite his debate team experience, Duerringer continued with his major in computer science and, after graduation, accepted a position as a computer programmer for an insurance company based in Galveston. While life for a single guy on an island vacation destination might seem appealing, Duerringer said the appeal vanished fairly quickly.

"Most of the people you meet on the weekends are there just for the weekend," he said. "And the people who live there – the people I was working with anyway – spent their weekends partying. During my time at SFA, I spent my weekends with the debate team – thinking about ideas and issues that were meaningful. Even if you can't personally solve the world's problems, you can at least think about the available alternatives."

During his tenure with the insurance company, Duerringer reviewed computer programs that performed financial calculations, looking for errors in the programming that might cause incorrect results. However, when the company discovered Duerringer's debate background, they assigned additional duties.

"They asked me to help train the sales agents to use the programs I reviewed," he said. "There was some travel involved, so that was kind of a perk."

Duerringer said another perk was the knowledge he gained about the insurance business.

"My brother was considering buying term life insurance, and I practically slapped him," he joked.

While the debate team experience was valuable to Duerringer in his job, he feels, without that experience, he might never have been hired in the first place.

"I know that I was competing against some people for that job who had better grades than I did, but debate has a natural benefit on interview skills," he said. "I've watched debate make people so much better on so many levels – not just better communicators, but socially and academically as well."

For Pat Richey, his undergraduate debate experience came in handy on a much different level – during military service in the Iraq war. He joined the Army in 1996 to help with college expenses, but was activated and sent to Iraq the semester before he was to graduate from Louisiana College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history and communication.

"I received the call on New Year's Day, and had to be in Kansas City three days later," he said. "I was in the middle of my best season of debate – that was the worst part."

The Missouri native was glad to have debate training during his year of service.

"Debate is focused on critical thinking skills, something you definitely want in a combat zone," he said. "I was a civil affairs specialist and we dealt with Iraqi civilians everyday. They asked tough questions, and you had to be able to think quickly and give them a reasonable response."

Richey said that during his time in Iraq, he did serious thinking about how we wanted to spend the rest of his life. He had already decided against a career in the military when an event occurred that cemented the decision for him.

"One day we lost a soldier – a girl who was in the group that had arrived to replace us," he recalled. "She'd been there a week and went out on a mission and got killed. It was supposed to be a happy time for us, but instead it just proved the saying, 'It's not over until it's over.' But at that point, I knew this was not something I could make a career of while raising a family."

Richey began plans to enroll in graduate school when his tour of duty was over, but the danger lasted for him until the moment he left the war zone.

"We were boarding the plane, and the enemy was dropping mortars on the other end of the runway," he said. "The Iraqis haven't been very successful at shooting down U.S. planes, but they've shot plenty of them sitting on runways. After we took off and they finally said we were out of Iraqi air space, everyone breathed a sigh of relief."

Led by Stephen Jeffcoat, SFA director of forensics and former International Public Debate Association Coach of the Year, the team is enjoying another successful debate season. The team is ranked top open division squad in the nation and Duerringer was named top open division debater following the group's performance at the Pi Kappa Delta Tournament of the Great West held recently in Seattle. Richey was named tournament champion at a recent tournament held at Louisiana Tech University.

The debaters are comfortable with the debate association's style – where up to 50 possible debate topics may be presented in every tournament.

"In Lincoln-Douglas debate, you study one topic per season, and a lot of time is spent in research and preparation, so you develop a deep knowledge of that topic," Richey explained. "With IPDA style, you get your topic 30 minutes ahead of time, so the only studying you can do is to read magazines like Time or Newsweek and be aware of what's going on in the news. It prepares you to apply rhetorical background to any topic that comes along."

After they earn their master's degrees, Richey and his wife, also a debate team member working on a master's degree in communication, plan to move back to the Midwest, where Richey hopes to pursue a career as a collegiate debate coach. Duerringer plans to earn a law degree and a doctorate in communication.

"The main thing I learned when I was working in Galveston was that I want to avoid the endless materialism I saw there," he explained. "Everything is done to get more money, but people spent so much time at work, that they really didn't have time to use that money anyway. It will probably take me 10 years to make what I made last year, but I won't be nearly as miserable."