{"id":3677,"date":"2026-09-22T12:00:17","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T17:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.jccc.edu\/messenger\/?p=3677"},"modified":"2026-09-22T10:56:55","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T15:56:55","slug":"jcccs-debate-team-a-bunch-of-lovable-nerds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.jccc.edu\/messenger\/2026\/09\/22\/jcccs-debate-team-a-bunch-of-lovable-nerds\/","title":{"rendered":"JCCC’s Debate Team: “A Bunch Of Lovable Nerds”"},"content":{"rendered":"

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.\u00a0\u00a0By: Caleb Jeong<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\n

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.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

All three students joined the team as novice debaters, according to the team\u2019s coach, Chris Loghry. He said they were intellectually curious and pushed him to become a better coach.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s always great when we graduate or transfer somebody, because that means that they achieved the thing that they were here to achieve, right?\u201d Loghry said. \u201cThey were fantastic \u2026 it was a good group. We miss them.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The students also left behind a tradition that began after a difficult tournament.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat kind of created a tradition,\u201d Loghry said. \u201cAnd now they\u2019re all gone, and the folks that are still here continue to, well, I guess we didn\u2019t get ice cream last weekend, sorry.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Loghry turned toward one of the students.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSorry, Charlie.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s okay.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u2019s topic is arms transfers.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of a small competitive group that talks about stuff and learns debate, learns debate concepts, argumentation concepts,\u201d Loghry said. \u201cSomething that\u2019s neat about the team is that there aren\u2019t any divisions in intercollegiate debate. So we compete against the whole gamut of other types of colleges and universities.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI 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,\u201d Turner said. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s probably a time once every year where I\u2019m like, \u2018Why do I do this?\u2019 And then I\u2019m like, \u2018You know what? Because I like it.\u2019 I think a lot of it is the community,\u201d Turner said.\u00a0\u201cI think because debate is, like\u2026 a relatively small number of people from relatively small amount of schools, that come in because they love it\u2026and love to talk about the things that they want to talk about\u2026it\u2019s also just fun.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cEvery team sort of has their own culture.\u201d Turner said. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou get to see, like, other people\u2019s 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,\u201d Turner said.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Loghry described the team simply: \u201cA bunch of lovable nerds.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2026wish them all the best in their, you know, their post-Johnson County Community College endeavors,\u201d\u00a0Loghry said. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":3678,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[365],"class_list":["post-3677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life"],"author_meta":{"display_name":"Saul Epstein","author_link":"https:\/\/blogs.jccc.edu\/messenger\/author\/sepstein\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/blogs.jccc.edu\/messenger\/files\/2026\/09\/Chris-8-300x206.jpg","coauthors":[{"link":"https:\/\/blogs.jccc.edu\/messenger\/author\/gabrielle-thompson\/","display_name":"Gabrielle Thompson"}],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["Life<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Life<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 4 days ago","modified":"Updated 4 days ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on September 22, 2026","modified":"Updated on September 22, 2026"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on September 22, 2026 12:00 pm","modified":"Updated on September 22, 2026 10:56 am"},"featured_img_caption":"","series_order":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"authors":[{"term_id":365,"user_id":0,"is_guest":1,"slug":"gabrielle-thompson","display_name":"Gabrielle Thompson","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g","author_category":"","first_name":"","last_name":"","user_url":"","job_title":"","description":""}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.jccc.edu\/messenger\/files\/2026\/09\/Chris-8-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.jccc.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.jccc.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.jccc.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.jccc.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.jccc.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3677"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.jccc.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3679,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.jccc.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3677\/revisions\/3679"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.jccc.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.jccc.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.jccc.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.jccc.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3677"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.jccc.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=3677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}