The Land of Lincoln has produced some of the nation’s greatest debaters in history, and some Cicero youths will endeavor to join their ranks when they compete in the Midwest Great Debate next month.
Spanning four days — from July 10 to 13 — the event features teams of high school freshmen from all over the Midwest competing in a rapid-fire debate tournament.
The National Hispanic Institute has spent nearly three decades creating innovative leadership programs for Latino high school and college students. One such program is the Young Leaders Conference, which gives high school freshmen the opportunity to test and improve their communication skills through organized debates.
Leading this year’s program, which will be at Augustana College in Rock Island, is John Cherone, a Cicero resident and junior at Dominican University in River Forest. Cherone and other local students have been selected as the program’s coaches. So far in their quest for recruits for the Cicero team, John and his coaches have added 24 freshmen to compete in the Great Debate.
Having a team representing his hometown in the competition was “surreal” to Cherone, who has been a part of the Institute and YLC for the past six years.
“It’s awesome. I usually go (to the Great Debate) every year, but to bring a team with me to represent Cicero, I was sort of ecstatic,” Cherone said.
This year’s first-place team will receive the Silver Cup, a 3-foot-tall trophy. Individuals who score particularly well will be invited to the National Great Debate in Austin, Texas, in October.
Cherone said teams he’s led in the past have fared well, and he expects no less from this year’s group.
“We’ve done pretty well so far,” Cherone said. “We’ve taken at least second place every year we’ve been there, and we’re trying to take first this year, as well as represent Cicero as a community.”
Amell Marty, Cicero resident and a freshman at the University of Illinois at Chicago, is the Cicero team’s head coach. She said she hopes the team’s participation will shatter negative stereotypes attached to Cicero.
She believes students are apprehensive in trying out for the team because they think it would hurt their image.
“I think there’s a lot of kids that have the potential to do much better, but they don’t,” Marty said. “There’s so much potential in this community.”
No matter how the team does in the debate, Marty said she is happy to be able to support her fellow students.
“I saw this as an opportunity to give back to my community,” she said. “I just feel like I’m doing my role. I’m doing something that will help someone else.”
