Debate Team Coach Chris Loghry explains the unique traditions of the JCCC Debate team, like grabbing ice cream, in an interview taken in the GEB building, on Wednesday 16 September, 2026.  By: Caleb Jeong

For the Johnson County Community College debate team, three students graduated or transferred after the 2025-26 academic year. While their time on the team has ended, some of what they brought to the program has stayed behind. 

All three students joined the team as novice debaters, according to the team’s coach, Chris Loghry. He said they were intellectually curious and pushed him to become a better coach. 

“It’s always great when we graduate or transfer somebody, because that means that they achieved the thing that they were here to achieve, right?” Loghry said. “They were fantastic … it was a good group. We miss them.” 

The students also left behind a tradition that began after a difficult tournament. 

After losing several debates at a tournament, the students were feeling discouraged and asked if the team could go get ice cream. From there, getting ice cream became a tradition the team continues to try to maintain. 

“That kind of created a tradition,” Loghry said. “And now they’re all gone, and the folks that are still here continue to, well, I guess we didn’t get ice cream last weekend, sorry.” 

Loghry turned toward one of the students. 

“Sorry, Charlie.” 

“It’s okay.” 

Now that those students have moved on, the current team is beginning a new year of competition while continuing some of the traditions they left behind. 

The team is an intercollegiate competitive program where students spend the academic year researching a specific topic before using what they have learned in competitions against students from other colleges and universities. This year’s topic is arms transfers. 

“It’s kind of a small competitive group that talks about stuff and learns debate, learns debate concepts, argumentation concepts,” Loghry said. “Something that’s neat about the team is that there aren’t any divisions in intercollegiate debate. So we compete against the whole gamut of other types of colleges and universities.” 

The team also receives institutional support through scholarships and a travel budget for competitions. Loghry noted that the program has been part of JCCC for decades. 

He emphasized that students gain skills through debate that carry over well beyond competition, from critical thinking and research to argumentation and public speaking, along with teamwork and leadership. 

For current team member Charlotte Turner, some of the biggest things she has gained from debate have been the people she has met and the friendships she has made. 

“I also think you gain a lot of knowledge on a lot of different topics, because one thing that I really love about debate is that people come into it, you know, wanting to talk about certain things,” Turner said.  

Students can bring their own interests and experiences into debate, she explained, which allows them to learn from each other even when they are arguing different sides of an issue. 

“There’s probably a time once every year where I’m like, ‘Why do I do this?’ And then I’m like, ‘You know what? Because I like it.’ I think a lot of it is the community,” Turner said. “I think because debate is, like… a relatively small number of people from relatively small amount of schools, that come in because they love it…and love to talk about the things that they want to talk about…it’s also just fun.” 

Turner also pointed to the opportunity to compete against other colleges as one of the things that has made debate interesting to her. She said different teams bring their own culture into competition, shaped by their own approaches and experiences, even when everyone is participating in the same activity. 

“Every team sort of has their own culture.” Turner said.  

Turner competed in her first college tournament last weekend, marking her first experience on the college circuit. She described it as a chance to see how other teams approach debate and how their experiences influence the way they compete. 

For Turner, the relationships she has made through the team are something she expects to take with her when her own time at JCCC comes to an end. 

“You get to see, like, other people’s passion, which I think is really beautiful, and it makes, like, the learning experience so much fun, because people are really bringing in their own personal experience and the things that they like about it,” Turner said. 

She also expects to leave with a deeper understanding of the topic the team spends the year studying. Debate allows students to examine one issue from many different angles, she said, and that understanding can surface outside of competition, such as when a related topic appears in the news or comes up in conversation. 

For the three students who graduated or transferred, that time has already come. They have taken the skills and relationships they developed through debate with them as they move on, while the current team continues building experiences of its own. 

Loghry described the team simply: “A bunch of lovable nerds.” 

What the three students left behind is more than a spot on the team. Students remember them. The tradition still occasionally ends with ice cream. And the team keeps competing after they have moved on. 

“We…wish them all the best in their, you know, their post-Johnson County Community College endeavors,” Loghry said.