This was previously published in our December 2025 issue.
The widely-discussed question of whether debate is a sport or not has no agreed-upon answer, especially within the speech and debate community itself.
However, the EHS Debate Team is part of the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference (EPC). Most of the activities that are included in this interscholastic conference are traditional athletic sports, but there are competitive activities, like debate, in the EPC as well.
Because of their involvement in the EPC, many members of EHS’s own debate team consider debate to be a true sport due to the intense mental preparation and hard work students must put in to be successful.
“This is a full-out competition that requires skill,” debate team advisor Jayne Espenshade said. “It requires coaching. It requires students to build cases. They analyze rounds, they strategize, and I also give individualized feedback as a coach.”
The team competes with other schools in the EPC on a topic based on current controversial issues. This year’s topic is whether or not the United States Federal Government should significantly develop and/or explore the Arctic. Fighting hard, the team advanced to the final championship debate and placed third this December.
“It was really cool to see that academic and debate teams can get the exact same trophy as sports get — the exact same medals,” senior Liam Paradise said. “It’s cool to see it in the display case, not necessarily for sports, but for something academic.”
Since the debate team had many new members join in the 2025-26 season, they made the decision to create two junior varsity teams.
“I’ve given them practices, and they’ve done JV debates against Parkland and other schools during the season. Even though it wasn’t for direct points, it gave them experience,” senior Debate Team president Aarav Ganshani said (Ganshani is also the deputy culture editor for The Stinger). “We have a bunch of people that are ready to go onto that varsity team and win next year.”
One of the many aspects of any sport is looking back on the work and bonds a team has made along the way.
“I don’t think about whether we won or lost,” Espenshade said. “My wish for them is to look back and be like ‘this is really my favorite part of being in high school.’”
