Last fall, the Friday Feature looked at the benefits of competitive speech and debate. Since then, I’ve heard from families who love the idea but can’t make it work with their schedules. Fortunately, there’s a way for those families to get some of the benefits of debate without leaving the comfort of home: Ziggy Online Debate.
Ziggy debate was started in 2011 by Isaac Sommers, a former NCFCA and Stoa high school debater. The program runs fall and spring tournaments in Team Policy, Lincoln Douglas, and Moot Court using NCFCA and Stoa topics. Parliamentary debate is also offered using Ziggy‐specific current event topics.
The fall Ziggy tournament includes weekly debates while the spring debates run every two weeks. Students are given their pairings on Sunday and are responsible for scheduling a time that works for both teams and then finding a judge. Debates can be held on any meeting platform, like Zoom or Google Meet. Judges fill out and submit ballots on the Ziggy Tournament Platform, which instantly notifies the debaters when their ballot is ready.
Isaac was inspired to start Ziggy to increase access to debate. “I knew firsthand the value of constant practice and honing skills, but I also knew the difficulty of accessing that opportunity due to the high cost of travel to various in‐person tournaments,” he says. “After debating for a few years and seeing the power of using online platforms to occasionally practice a debate here or there with a friend, I decided to start a business around the concept to empower debaters everywhere to hone their skills through high quantity and high quality while doing so from the comfort of their own home.”
After almost a decade of online competition, Ziggy was well‐positioned to provide new opportunities for debaters when the 2020 season was cut short by COVID-19 restrictions. Isaac and his team connected with individual debaters and partnered with other debate coaching groups to offer a series of online tournaments to fill the gap left by canceled events.
“The first time I participated in Ziggy was the qualifying tournament for Ziggy Nationals in 2020,” says NCFCA competitor Diedra Hall. “My season had just been cut short and I had only gone to one tournament. Ziggy made it possible for me to gain more debate experience, especially against debaters outside of my region. I continued with Ziggy the following year, and it helped me qualify for—and be competitive at—NCFCA Nationals in 2021.”
If your children are interested in debate but you aren’t able to join a traditional league for in‐person competition, Ziggy is a great option to consider. Participants can gain the skills associated with debate—including research, communication, quick thinking, and the ability to weigh multiple perspectives about an issue—without the cost and time commitment debate usually entails.
