Participating on a debate team as perhaps the worst debater they had ever seen was critical to my educational path at UO, and on into my current profession as an attorney. I joined debate to address my tremendous fear of public speaking, and I have now spent thirty years speaking in public for a living. Debate was much more than that, however. It introduced me to wildly intelligent humans who dug into research and competition with an enthusiasm I’d not encountered in my university classes to that point. Traveling and competing and exchanging ideas with them was probably the most important experience I had at UO, as it broadened my educational expectations and gave me the confidence to move on to law school after graduation.