The SIU debate team and debate teams from around the country are preparing for the biggest tournament of the year, the National Parliamentary Tournament of Excellence.

Like the BCS National Championship for football, the NPTE is the national tournament for collegiate debate teams where the best of the best compete against each other for a national title.

The NPTE will be held from Saturday, March 15 to Tuesday, March 18 at Northern Arizona University.

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Going into this weekend, the debate team pairing of Benjamin Campbell and Joshua Rivera are ranked first in the nation according to the 2014 NPTE rankings and have already accepted a bid for this year’s NPTE.

Todd Graham, the director of debate for the university, will lead his top-ranked team into the weekend hoping to solidify their position as the best in the nation.

Graham said there is a lot of work going into preparation for each tournament.

The team meets every Tuesday and Thursday for about seven hours to discuss topics. Before the meetings are held, coaches meet to talk about what assignments will be given to the debaters, he said.

“Our job is to try and predict what the topics might be and then make sure we have done some research for our team,” he said.

Assignments are given to the debaters to research. This research can range anywhere from economics, politics at a national and sometimes local level and relevant worldwide news such as what is going on in the Sudan or Ukraine, he said.

An important part of being a good debater is being well versed on world affairs and being up to date on news, Graham said.

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Campbell, a senior from Springfield, Mo. studying political science, said he hopes to do well this weekend at Loyola University. To do this, the team needs to prepare just as they would for any other tournament, he said.

“We’re going to prepare in much the same way that we would for a traditional debate tournament, doing the necessary work, updating files, keeping posted on what’s going on in the world and the news,” Campbell said. “Whenever we have topics during the weekend we have a base of information that we can speak from.”

The debate team consists of three coaches, including Graham and two graduate assistants and three debaters.

Because the debate team at the university is smaller than most, Graham said the debaters have to do a lot of research, something he preaches to new recruits.

“We put in a lot of hours,” he said. “I tell people when I recruit for our team, you are going to work harder on this debate team than if you debate for anyone else.”

Graham said the key in having a good debate team is to have a good support system starting with the administration, the department and then the debate team members themselves.

“Unfortunately I see a lot of programs that are good for a year or two and not so good for the next eight, nine or ten,” he said. “Often times it is because they are not well supported at their university or the support wanes a bit.”

A good debate team comes from the support and the amount of research the team does, but it also has to have a bit of luck, Graham said.

“It has got to be set with the administration, with the coaching, with the debaters and then you still have to be fortunate,” he said.

Campbell said he approaches debate in his senior year much like a collegiate football player in his final season. He said he wants to be able to say he threw everything out on the table and look back with satisfaction.

“Leave everything out on the field and have no regrets,” he said.

The team of Campbell and Rivera currently has a total of 44.1 NPTE points and a win percentage of 97.5 percent.

To put those numbers into perspective, the number two ranked debate team in the nation is Concordia University Irvine with a total of 38.35 NPTE points.

The debate team will travel to Loyola University in Chicago this weekend to compete in its last tournament before the NPTE.

Kyle Sutton can be reached at [email protected], on Twitter at @KyleSutton_DE or at 536-3311 ext. 268.