The Coaches

Coaches

Mike Bietz:

Mike is the Director of Debate at the Harvard-Westlake Upper School in California. Previously, he coached at Edina High School in Minnesota, where he founded that program’s Lincoln-Douglas squad. Mike is the only person in the history of Lincoln-Douglas debate to coach debaters to win both Nationals and the TOC in the same year. His students also made history by becoming the only debaters to close out the Glenbrooks. The following year, his debaters did it again (with a 37-1 total ballot count). No other school has ever closed out the Glenbrooks (and, accordingly, none have done it twice). Beyond the Glenbrooks, Mike has coached close-outs at the Blake, Hopkins Royal Cup, the Blake School’s Edie Holiday Tournament, the Valley Mid-America Cup, the Iowa Caucus, and the Greenhill Fall Classic. His students have also won Apple Valley and competed in the final round at the Harvard National Invitational, and the Omaha Westside Warrior Invitational. Beyond winning tournaments, Mike’s Edina team regularily cleared six, seven, or eight debaters at the same TOC-qualifiying competitions. His students have also performed very strongly on their local circuits. Mike is a diamond coach in the National Forensic League.

Jacob Levi

he winner of the Walter Alan Ulrich Award — the prestigious top speaker honors at the Tournament of Champions — Jacob debated at the Berkeley Carroll School with a clear record of excellence. Over the course of his career, Jacob won the Wake Forest National Earlybird, the Newark Debates, and the demo round of the MBA Round Robin, and debated the final round of the Glenbrooks, the New York City Invitational (Big Bronx XXXV), and the Yale Invitational. He was also top speaker at Big Bronx and at the Minneapple, and appeared in late outrounds at such tournaments as the Greenhill Fall Classic, the St. Mark’s Heart of Texas Invitational, the Minneapple, the Blake School’s Edie Holiday Tournament, the Lexington Winter Classic, and the Harvard National Invitational. Jacob qualified to the NCFL Grand National Tournament his freshman and sophomore years, to the Tournament of Champions his junior and senior years, and to Nationals his senior year. In addition to placing as top speaker at the TOC his senior year, Jacob cleared into the outrounds, a fitting culmination to a season marked by outround appearances at all eleven national circuit tournaments he attended. Additionally, he placed seventh at the NFL National Tournament.