Designed to eliminate confusion: New name for NFL

Rick Sincere at NFL HQ in Ripon, 2012

News comes from Ripon, Wisconsin, that the venerable National Forensic League is changing its name to the National Speech & Debate Association.

The decision was made by the NFL's board last May.  One of the purposes behind the change in nomenclature was to reduce two separate but equally frustrating forms of confusion:  with the National Football League and with the term "forensics" as crime scene investigation procedures, as if the NFL were the trade association for characters played on TV by David Caruso, Ted Danson, and Gary Sinise.

To be fair, the term "forensics" derives from the courtroom rhetoric used by lawyers to prove their case beyond a shadow of a doubt.  Eventually this grew to encompass all the tools used by law enforcement and prosecuting attorneys, from fingerprints to DNA analysis as well as deductive reasoning and argumentation.  Orators and debaters laid claim to the word before the maggot-studying scientists started to use it.

In an FAQ on what used to be the NFL's web site, the reason for the rebranding is explained:

As a communication organization, we need to effectively communicate who we are and what we do. There is a common misunderstanding of “NFL” or “forensics,” including confusion with the National Football League or crime scene investigation; changing our name to focus on the activity of speech and debate will appeal to more students, coaches, alumni, sponsors, and the general public. We believe rebranding the organization as the National Speech & Debate Association will help us strengthen existing relationships, build new partnerships, increase national and local support for speech and debate, and allow us to pursue our mission to the fullest potential.

I have written on previous occasions about the positive impact speech and debate have had on my life and career.  Participating in debate through Marquette University High School's Webster Club and coaching younger debaters at the Georgetown University Forensics Institute (there's that word again) for three summers gave me analytical skills that I use every day.  Writing a blog post is not so different from writing a debate brief.  There just aren't as many bodies piled up on the podium, and you don't breathlessly tell your readers to "pull that across your flow."

It's too bad that popular culture has seldom offered a realistic view of speech and debate.  (Even the well-received play, Speech & Debate by Stephen Karam, is off the mark.)  Films like Thumbsucker and Listen to Me deserve thumbs up for effort but raspberries for accuracy.

The only recognizable portrayal of competitive speech on the high school circuit I have found is in James Magruder's novel, Sugarless.  In a brief review of that book in 2010, I wrote:

I don't read much fiction, in general, but when I received a review copy of James Magruder's Sugarless late last year, I simply could not put it down.

It has been almost a year since I read the book, but I still think about it because it resonates with my personal experience so much: not in every aspect, but hitting a sufficient number of points on the matrix to make me believe it.

Sugarless is the story of Rick, a 15-year-old high school student in suburban Chicago during the mid-1970s who, almost purely by chance, ends up on the speech team and finds out he has a talent for dramatic interpretation (or dramatic interp, for those in the know).

Magruder's verisimilitude about high school forensics struck me more than anything else in the book, even the parts about the protaganist's struggle with coming out as gay in an era far less accepting of that than it is now. His descriptions of the scenes at speech tournaments are amazingly accurate, and his portrayals of coaches and competitors are eerily familiar to me.

The one detail that other readers might find difficult to believe is the choice of the protaganist's speech coach to have him do an excerpt from Mart Crowley's play, The Boys in the Band. People unfamiliar with high school forensics may think that a play about gay men would be off-limits, especially in 1976, and especially in the American Midwest.

The truth is, a cutting from The Boys in the Band was circulating at that time, and my own coach asked me to do it. For reasons unrelated to the content of the piece, I ended up doing a different selection. (If I recall correctly, it was the courtroom scene in A Man for All Seasons, a far more conventional choice.) So I can testify against the doubters that an excerpt from The Boys in the Band was, indeed, being performed on the high school forensics circuit in the mid-1970s.

Having just seen the excellent documentary about Crowley and his play, Making the Boys, at the Virginia Film Festival, my memories of reading Sugarless earlier this year and my own experience in high school rushed back to me.

I recommend Sugarless to anyone who has competed in speech and debate or to anyone who was once a gay teenager. It's an excellent book, and a compelling read -- a real achievement for a first-time novelist, even one who, like Magruder, is an accomplished playwright and translator.

I would love to see Sugarless on screen, although I doubt that's likely to happen anytime soon. Too niche; too talky; too gay -- but delicious all the same.

Having mentioned Sugarless, I should also note Mark Oppenheimer's relatable, readable memoir, Wisenheimer: A Childhood Subject to Debate. Oppenheimer portrays accurately the debate environment in which he competed, but that was not policy debate under the auspices of the NFL or the NCFL (National Catholic Forensic League). It was, rather, a self-contained regional circuit populated by New England prep school teams, different from the kind of debate people tend to encounter elsewhere in the country (Upper Midwest, Texas) and even in today's urban debate leagues. My review of Wisenheimer was published in December 2010.

While old-timers like myself may feel the rebranding of the National Forensic League into the National Speech & Debate Association (no approved acronym or abbreviation ) is a rejection of the organization's historical roots, at least it is an accurately descriptive moniker for the group.  It requires no more explanation than what can fit on a business card.

A final note:  it was announced earlier this month that the policy debate topic for the 2014-15 school year will be "Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase its non-military exploration and/or development of the Earth's oceans."

Ocean policy got me into college and was one-quarter of my master's degree -- but those are stories for another time, another day.

Hilltopper, Hoya, M.D. ... Ambassador

Today's news includes a story about a high school and college classmate of mine, Mark Dybul, who was sworn in on Tuesday by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as the new U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator.

As the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported last month, putting a local slant on it,

Mark Dybul, a Whitefish Bay native, has been named by the White House to be U.S. global AIDS coordinator and will lead the implementation of President Bush's emergency plan for AIDS relief.
The position comes with a rank of ambassador and will involve travel to the Caribbean, sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia to oversee President Bush's $15 billion program to combat spread of the disease.
"It is humbling and inspiring to be given the chance to serve the American people and to touch the lives of people around the world," said Dybul....
Dybul was confirmed by the Senate on Aug. 3 and will be sworn in at a private ceremony on Oct. 10. His parents, Claire and Richard Dybul of Whitefish Bay, will travel to Washington to attend.
"We wouldn't miss this for the world," said Richard Dybul, 74, who is retired from the construction business.

Technically, I suppose, we were not "classmates," in the sense that we never attended classes together. In fact, Mark was four years behind me at both Marquette University High School in Milwaukee and at Georgetown University. But because we were on the same debate team at Marquette High and I coached at the Georgetown Summer Forensics Institute when Mark was part of the Philodemic Society, we knew each other. (If I were particularly cheeky, I would scan Mark's yearbook photo from his freshman year at MUHS and post it here. But I choose to be kind.) Let's just say we traveled in the same circles.

As an alumnus of Georgetown's debate team, Mark is part of a legacy that includes Democratic political strategist Bob Shrum, Bill Clinton's lawyer Robert S. Bennett, St. John's University law professor John Q. Barrett (also an MUHS alum), space travel entrepreneur Charles Chafer, National War College professor Michael Mazarr, investment banking and derivatives expert Bradley Ziff, and many others.

I actually have not seen Mark in more than a decade -- perhaps much longer than that. It's good to see him rise to a position of such prominence and responsibility. I have to say, however, that the usual route from Georgetown to an ambassadorial appointment is through the School of Foreign Service rather than the College and Medical School.

The swearing-in ceremony was accompanied by remarks by both Secretary Rice and First Lady Laura Bush, who both had kind things to say.

Secretary of State Rice began by noting the presence of Mark's family:

I am truly honored and delighted to have the opportunity to swear in Mark Dybul as our next Global AIDS Coordinator. I am pleased to do that in the presence of Mark's parents, Claire and Richard; his partner, Jason; and his mother-in-law, Marilyn. You have wonderful family to support you, Mark, and I know that's always important to us. Welcome.

She then summed up what his responsibilities will be in his new post:

The fight to eradicate AIDS is really one of the great moral callings of our time. Mark is the right person to carry on this great program and this great cause. He brings of course a deep commitment to the role from his years in public service and in public health. He studied AIDS as a researcher and as a doctor and he's gained a full understanding of the virus.

But it's not enough for Mark to simply have been someone who understood this virus; he wanted to do something about it. And so he's been a policy maker who has confronted the disease's tragic effects on individuals and families and communities.

When we were standing out in the anteroom, Mark said that he misses being a physician and his contact with individual patients. But as the First Lady said to him, he is of course now having an extraordinarily broad impact on the lives of so many. Mark takes the helm at a time when the United States has dedicated enormous resources and enormous energy to combating the scourge of HIV/AIDS. It's not an easy path. It's a path that still in many ways needs to be plowed. But we're making headway through the President's Emergency Plan, and now in its third year PEPFAR is on pace to meet our five-year, $15 billion commitment for prevention, treatment and care. The Emergency Plan is the single largest international initiative by any country for any disease and we're making progress each step along the way; one more orphan, one more patient is taken care of or treated, and one more person can live with the disease.

Then the First Lady offered a few comments:

Mark has already made a huge difference as Acting, Deputy, and Assistant Global AIDS Coordinator. I've seen the results of his work as I've visited PEPFAR projects around the world -- from a program in Russia that helps HIV-positive children lead healthy lives, to South Africa's Mothers to Mothers-to-Be program, which helps HIV-positive pregnant women deliver babies free of HIV.

Secretary Rice mentioned Mark's long career in health policy, and how he brings immense experience and expertise to his new position. Yet what distinguishes Dr. Dybul is his creativity. For PEPFAR to succeed, its resources must be used wisely. And from the initiative's very beginning, Mark's innovation has helped widen PEPFAR's reach. He's ensured that HIV prevention programs are integrated with treatment and orphan care. He works with other federal agencies to streamline our development efforts, combining AIDS relief with economic assistance, food aid, and the work of the President's Malaria Initiative.

PEPFAR works with partner governments and local relief programs to develop effective treatment and prevention. But the challenges presented by HIV and AIDS are too great for governments to address alone. Mark brings together people of all political persuasions, of many nations and backgrounds, from governments and the private sector, to address a challenge that faces all of us. He's committed to working with businesses, foundations and individual philanthropists who have a tremendous interest in aiding the developing world.

In fact, just this year, thanks to Mark's leadership, I've announced two PEPFAR-related public-private partnerships. In March, the federal government joined several pharmaceutical companies to help them improve access to pediatric AIDS medicines, and to develop HIV therapies that are safe for children. Last month, at the Clinton Global Initiative, I announced the PlayPumps alliance, an initiative that will use children's merry-go-rounds to pump clean drinking water for 10 million sub-Saharan Africans by 2010.

Ambassador Dybul's leadership comes at a crucial time. Around the world, nearly 40 million people are infected with HIV or AIDS. But to Mark, those 40 million people are more than a statistic. In addition to his public health expertise, his leadership skills, and his creative policy work, Mark is first and foremost a physician. To Dr. Dybul, these 40 million people are individual patients, each deserving comfort, compassion and care, and a chance to lead healthy and happy lives.

Finally, Dr. Dybul responded:

It is humbling and inspiring to be sworn in to succeed Ambassador Randy Tobias as the second U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator. Randy’s leadership, management capabilities and personal style put the pieces in place to get the initiative off to a rapid start.

But today is not about an individual who fills a position. Today is a time to reflect on the extraordinary fact that there is such a position as U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator at all.

It was only a little more than 3 years ago that President Bush changed the world with the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. When the history of global public health is written, the launch of the largest international health initiative in history dedicated to a single disease will be remembered as one of the boldest and most important actions – ever.

As Dr. Peter Piot of UNAIDS has said, the commitment of $15 billion across 5 years changed the global landscape from millions of dollars to billions of dollars. More important than the quantum increase in dollars was the insistence that those dollars achieve results – that we meet aggressive prevention, treatment and care goals in a defined period of time....

Individuals, communities and nations are taking ownership of their lives and are beginning to turn the tide against the epidemic. Young men and women are choosing behaviors that protect them against infection or reduce their risk of acquiring it. When accurate information is provided, personal responsibility is taking hold.

We are beginning to see social norms change – a church that taught polygamy now teaches monogamy, young men are teaching their peers that men must respect women.

Health facilities are expanding rapidly to provide medical interventions for prevention, counseling and testing and compassionate care and treatment.

And many lives are being saved.

Notably, earlier this year, when Mark's nomination was announced, The Washington Blade reported that he was to become

the third openly gay person to hold a U.S. ambassadorial position. President Clinton appointed businessman and philanthropist James Hormel as ambassador to Luxemburg. In his first term in office, Bush appointed gay career Foreign Service Officer Michael Guest as ambassador to Romania.

Maybe we really are in the 21st century.