Debate 16: Texas State University, San Marcos, TX.

We arrived into Austin via Dallas around 3pm, for this stop, which the British tour has been making for the last 7 or 8 years. Past reports had said that Wayne Kramer who is there debate coach has the best moustache in the world – they were correct. In fact Alex had judged with Wayne before when he had come across to the Oxford IV, something Texas State do every year. Texas State is one of the largest universities we had been to so far – it is also the university that LBJ attended and debated for when it was call South West Texas State (CHECK). The debate society is also names after Lyndon Banes (who also taught debate at both high school and university before entering public office). Wayne took us on a walking tour of the State Capitol, which (according to Texans) is taller than the Capitol Building in Washington DC. It wasn’t until we had taken in the majesty of the building and the uniquely Texan touches (the light fittings in both the Senate and House Chambers spelt our T-E-X-A-S in the state’s star) that we fully appreciated why many Americans consider Texas a distinct country within the USA. We had a light lunch by the river and witnessed a Zombie Protest. In essence, 200 people dressed up as the living dead marauding across the main bridge into town demanding ‘Free Brains for All!’ We had been told that in this part of Texas the people were proud of the slogan ‘Keep Austin Weird’ and the scene before us as we ate lunch went some way to convincing us the T-Shirt wearers had nothing to worry about. Austin certainly is a liberal anomaly in a predominantly Republican Texas.

It has become a tradition that the British Debate Team shoots things whilst in Texas - and this year was to be no exception. We got up rather early and after a delicious Taco Breakfast we were driven (blindfolded) to a nearby S.W.A.T shooting range. For obvious reasons we are unable to describe in detail what we experienced, but we both enjoyed the experience. It was the first time that either of us had fired Handguns and Automatic Rifles (M4s - the same model used by US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan) and the instructor was particularly impressed with Alistair’s marksmanship. We were both conscious of how much respect the instructor clearly had for the weapons and it was comforting to know that even the law enforcement authorities are aware of the awesome power that they yield.

We returned to the Texas State campus where we made the first our two classrooms visits. Dr Gomez introduced us to his Inter-Cultural Communications class who proceeded to ask us questions about the UK. After it became clear that they were slightly ‘behind the curve’ (US sports have really infected our vocabulary) on British history, we put our academic knowledge to good use and taught a ‘UK101’ crash course. Thanks to Alex’s interactive map of the UK (which probably made Scotland look rather large and Cornwall rather phallic) and Alistair’s solid grasp of immigration patterns since the 11th Century, the discussion moved on to a comparative analysis of the attitude that British and American people have towards immigration. We had watched enough Lou Dobbs (think Richard Little John with a nicer suit and tie) to get a sense of how controversial this subject was and the fact that Dr Gomez was Mexican added a fascinating edge to the discussion. He admitted to us later that he thought his students were far more frank when discussing the issue with us than when he was leading the class. As classes finished up for the day, we were invited to a meeting of the Associated Student Government where we were both made ‘Honorary Bobcats’ by a unanimous vote of the student body and presented with very posh certificates to prove our status. It was a wonderful gesture and we look forward to wearing our Texas State hoodies with pride back in the UK!

That evening Amber and Megan (two Graduate Communications students) drove us downtown to Austin where we had an unforgettable evening. It started with a game of Shuffleboard (curling on a wooden table without the brooms) in which the Brits once again proved their love of bar sports with a tense 2-0 victory! We then had some very cheap tequila before heading to 6th Street – famous for making Austin ‘The Live Music Capital of the World’. It is 1.5 miles long and features numerous bars, tattoo parlours, pizzerias and small music venues. Although it was a Monday night we found a lively bar with a superb three-piece band that took requests for a dollar. The trumpeter was spectacular and we spend a good hour listening to covers ranging from ‘Oklahoma Boys’ to ‘Brown Eyed Girl’…

The next morning we were back in the classroom teaching another Inter-Cultural Communications class. This time the discussion focused more on the perception of Americans abroad and the reasons why so many people in the USA have a genuine fear of ‘Big Government’. The class were extremely knowledgeable about international affairs and we had some fascinating exchanges about the differences between the British reaction to 7/7 and the American response to 9/11. Lunch consisted of the largest of the largest onion rings either of us had ever seen and pink lemonade (this restaurant had no fruit juice!)

Our first debate of the day was at the new local High School that had recently opened to cater for two thousand students in the San Marcos area. We spoke in front of over 300 somewhat restless students on the motion, “This House Believes that Celebrities deserve private lives”. It was a lively debate although the vast lunch-hall that served as an auditorium didn’t have the best acoustics so the kids were probably more excited by our accents and matching ties than the depth of our analysis. Alistair perfected his royal wave as we left the building for our next public debate…

The motion we were asked to oppose was “This house believes that Scottish Succession is more important than Texas Succession”. It was by far the most amusing debate of the tour to date and featured sweeping generalisations about Texans and Guns, Scots and Kilts and a stirring rendition of ‘God Bless Texas’ by Alex. We narrowly won the debate and were taken out to a delicious fish restaurant for dinner – which was a nice break from all the amazing meat we had been consuming! The evening ended with another solid team performance at the pool table. A 5-1 victory over the Texas State team took our tour record to 17-6 or a 0.735 winning percentage – would it be enough to take us into the playoffs at NCA?