Passionate Debating Minus the Pressure

Shane Stafford’s coaching ethos prioritizes progress over achievements

Faith Zhao | Staff Writer

Stafford and Sandy Berkowitz were originally debate rivals. Now married, they coach debate together.

The first time they met, they were at a tournament at Princeton University. After the debate, they kept seeing each other at local tournaments. They started dating, married in 1987, and decided to get their masters together. They passed on their passion to their daughter, Hana Stafford ‘13, who debated for Rutgers University and now coaches debate and teaching English at Success Academy in New York City.

Stafford has coached debate since 1979 and for the past 15 years, he has taught Argumentation/Debate, Advanced Debate, and Senior Seminar and coached debate at Blake. Stafford and Berkowitz have also been coaches for the USA Debate Development Team for 10 years, which Jack Johnson ‘20, Edward Adams ‘21, Connor Yu ‘18, and Elizabeth Terveen ‘23 have all been on. They meet with Freshmen and Sophomores all over the country to coach debate and have been to Bali, Croatia, and Germany for tournaments.

Stafford uniquely asks his students only two questions after a tournament: “Did you have fun and did you learn something?”

Terveen explains that “the two questions he asks are a very genuine reflection of his teaching style and view on debate – he values hard work and progress over winning.”

Sofia Perri ‘23 bate in general…Shane makes debate about what it should be, which is obviously learning and doing something that excites you intellectually…I like how he deemphasizes [whether you won or lost].”

Despite the debate program’s eight state championships and six national championships, students feel no pressure from Stafford to win tournaments and receive trophies. Tess Dayhoff ‘25 explains, “Obviously, you want to do your best, but he never is pressuring [you to] do well here, [or saying] you have to win. He never does that.”

Stafford’s debating philosophy focuses more on process and growth. He explains, “[Debate] is good for your failure resume… When you fail, you grow more sometimes than when you’re successful. Sometimes, there’s going to be someone a little bit better, you’re always going to lose rounds, there are going to be things you can’t control. I think those are all good life experiences to get better at just life in general.”

He also emphasizes the idea of “redos.” When his students lose for a certain reason, he encourages them to further refine their skills, find ways to beat the argument, and not do the same thing next time. Stafford adds, “If you want to be good, then you need to do two things, you need to work hard and [listen] to coaching. If you do those two things, I feel like no matter what your basic raw skills are, you’re [going] to get better.”

Stafford highlights this willingness to work. He says, “I don’t think you need any particular skills to begin except the desire to work hard and spend some time on it.” debater, when I didn’t have a lot of experience and wasn’t particularly skilled. Having someone who appreciated my work ethic and believed in my potential was incredibly influential in my decision to stick with the activity.”

Perri shared a similar experience. During her first few years of debate she didn’t put that much work into it because of gymnastics, but during Junior year she decided to really focus on debate. She explains, “He had no obligation to [listen] given the past two years,” but he still trusted her, gave her attention, coaching, a partner, and abundant resources, “completely turning my debate career around.”

Another aspect that Stafford emphasizes is having fun and enjoying debate. He admits that debate is difficult so “you got to enjoy it.” He explains how “you don’t have to commit your life to it, you can still do it and be successful in everything else, but [on] some level, if it’s not enjoyable it’s going to be a lot harder.”

Stafford has undoubtedly had a huge impact on the debate program and his students don’t stop singing his praises. “Shane is an amazing coach who is incredibly supportive of Blake debaters. He cares about you personally, will help you succeed, but will still support you even if you don’t find success immediately,” says Terveen.

Perri agrees, adding, “I think he dedicates so much to the debate team, sacrifices so much time, energy, and really, really, cares about all of the students. [He] gives everyone second chances, attention, resources, even if arguably they don’t deserve them. [He] does so much more than people realize behind the scenes.”

Stafford doesn’t care about winning or accomplishments. Rather, his goal is for debaters is “to leave this team changing the world [and] making the world more

Buck break dances at his University of Chicago reunion. He often competes in dance battles with “different formats, but the most common is they’ll have a preliminary round where everybody dances for 45 seconds or a minute, and sometimes that’s showcase style where they’ll just have one person come up after the other and dance in front of the judges.” saber class as a P.E. class just for fun.”

Anna Tao | Staff Writer

Buck has been a common topic among students in the past year due to his increasing popularity from dancing in class.

He first “caught the wave of suburban breaking in 1984.”

His favorite aspect of fencing is “the way in which you can outsmart people, [which] is probably greater [in fencing] than in most sports. Your ability to analyze what’s going on, come up with a plan, and execute can allow you to beat people who are maybe more physically gifted than you are. My favorite moments from my fencing career have been moments when I’ve outsmarted somebody else rather than just beating them with brute force.”

Buck continues, “[I] did it for nine months and had fun with it, but it was kind of a dead end because no one back then would teach you anything. I spent about 10 years from like age 40 - 50 watching dance shows on TV, and thinking ‘oh that would be really fun to do but I’m too old for that,’” he explains. He eventually joined an adult breaking class, “and I was hooked. I all of a sudden realized I could look up on YouTube dance tutorials and I started doing that. I’ve done something like 85 battles, probably would’ve been more if not for COVID-19.”

After finishing his program, Buck asked his instructor if he needed any help. He then became an assistant coach and he truly found his passion. Buck explains, “[I’ve] always been interested in teaching and coaching, so I think fencing works well with my skill set for coaching, and I enjoy fencing because of that.” He continues, “It’s not as much a passion for fencing, it’s a passion for coaching.” picked cross country because that seemed like it was the easiest to do, I could hide in the back, and I was 31 out of 32 people on the team when we started, and I kept getting better and better and [by] Senior year, I was the fourth man on varsity.

Translating this concept of improvement and inexperience to his fencers, Buck never fails to encourage others to try something fresh and unexpected for themselves to learn they can improve at anything. He adds, “You can show up at high school, never even having fenced, and come out and learn to fence and have a good experience. I really like that basically anybody can come in and learn the sport and have fun doing it without the high pressure of some sports.”

He doesn’t just limit himself to one style of dance, he’s currently practicing “breaking, locking, wacking, popping, hip-hip, house, crump, tutting, and animating.”

The multifaceted Buck explains that he doesn’t just involve himself with his well established passions of coaching, fencing, and dancing, but is also involved with a large number of outside activities including, “[officiating] high school and col lege lacrosse, I assign officials for lacrosse, I ocean lifeguard in the summer, I do some private tutor ing, I do some online consulting, I kind of put together a package of stuff I like doing to keep things interesting.”

Buck can often be seen dancing while subbing, but he has also been coaching fencing for 22 years. His start in fencing proves that passions are discovered and not born with. He explains, “I certainly like fencing, but I took kind of a strange path to it, we didn’t have fencing in high school and I didn’t do it in college.” He joined the University of Minnesota’s club fencing team while in graduate school and “then took the

Above: Buck giving advice to Tyler Smith ‘23 at the 2022 State Fencing Championship at Holy Family. Below: Buck strategizing with Alvin Liu ‘25 and Matthew Sun ‘24 at a 2020 dual meet at the Upper School.

All these activities have proved useful and applicable to other aspects of his life. Buck realized that he, or any person, could improve at anything by just giving it time and effort. He explains, “I went to a Quaker high school in Pennsylvania and we were forced to do, whether you wanted to or not, two sports a year. I

Similarly with dance, Buck notices that “there are some people who I almost feel like they identify their self worth with how well they do in the battles.” Buck does not agree with this mentality and explains that the experience itself is enough for him. His mentality towards the competitions is that they are “an opportunity to show people what I’ve been working on.”

Buck again transfers his knowledge towards his attitude as a coach, he explains, “I just want people to have fun and keep working on improving.” What he loves about coaching is “seeing people get better. Seeing people make the connection [that they might not be the most athletic person,] but [they] put in the time working and [they] can see that [they’re] getting better.” He continues, “ I think that’s an important lesson for everyone to learn and it was, with me and cross country running. [Knowing that] if I work harder, I’ll get better, that opened doors to me.”