NT_050318

20 | May 3, 2018 | The Northbrook tower news
northbrooktower.com
GBN alumna notches Top Speaker Award at National Debate Tournament
Fifth-ever female
student to earn
prestigious honor
Martin Carlino, Editor
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From the moment she
walked into Glenbrook
North High School, Natalie
Knez was motivated
by the idea of competitive
success.
Now, nearly eight years
later as she prepares to
graduate from Georgetown
University, Knez has compiled
a track record full of
success.
Knez initially envisioned
her success would
derive from athletic endeavors,
but it came in a
different form, and it was
ignited the moment she
walked into Dr. Michael
Greenstein’s freshman debate
class at GBN.
Just one year later, during
her sophomore year,
Knez started debating
competitively. Since then,
her career as a debater
has produced numerous
awards.
At the high-school level,
Knez quickly became one
of the top debaters in the
state, earning back-to-back
state championships her
junior and senior years.
“She was part of a dynamite
group of kids that
were all really excited and
very intelligent and eager
to compete,” said Greenstein,
her debate coach
while at GBN. “As time
went on ... she just kept
growing at a rapid rate. I
think a lot of it is because
she has a natural drive to
succeed and a natural drive
to be competitive that propelled
her to do the things
needed to grow. From
there, she spread like wildfire
in terms of her ability.
She just got exponentially
better and better.”
When it came time to
pursue debate at the collegiate
level, Knez prioritized
the opportunity to
build on her high school
success, making her decision
to attend Georgetown
— one of the top debate
schools in the country —
an easy one.
“When I came to
Georgetown, I debated
competitively pretty much
right from the start,” Knez
said. “The debate team
here is great, it’s a big
reason why I came here.
In the last seven or eight
years here, there’s been a
really strong tradition of
competitive success.”
While at Georgetown,
Knez has qualified for the
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Glenbrook North graduate Natalie Knez receives the award for Top Speaker at the
National Debate Tournament. Photo Submitted
National Debate Tournament
all four years. During
her junior year, Knez
reached the finals of the
tournament. Paired with a
senior partner and in her
longtime head coach’s final
year, Knez considered
her run to the finals a nice
conclusion to her debate
career.
But, with a little less
pressure attached and a
freshman as her debate
partner, Knez turned in another
magical performance
at this year’s tournament.
With countless hours of
preparation and careful
execution, Knez and her
partner, David Bernstein,
finished second out of 78
competing teams. For her
strong individual performance,
Knez earned the
tournament’s Top Speaker
Award, a prestigious honor
given to the speaker who
earns the highest number
of speaker points throughout
the tournament. During
each debate, both teams
and individuals speakers
are awarded points
by judges for set criteria.
Knez’s performance over
the course of tournament
earned her the honor. The
Glenbrook North graduate
is just the fifth-ever female
student to earn the Top
Speaker Award and the
first-ever female student
from Georgetown to do so.
As she looks back on
her career in debate, Knez
is proud of the program’s
success and the lessons it
has taught her.
“I’m definitely really
proud to have been part of
such an awesome team,”
she said. “When I look
back on college debate, I’ll
always remember the process
that allowed us to have
such successful [National
Debate Tournaments] the
last couple of years, because
I think that the preparation
that we put in and the
working relationships that
I’ve had with our coaches
and with the debate partners
... are really unique ... I
think that it’s a lesson to me
moving forward that learning
to work will with your
teammates and working
toward a goal with a group
of people can be really rewarding,
because it’s really
special to have accomplishments
as an individual, but
it’s much more rewarding
to achieve something as a
group of people that is driven
toward the same goal.”
After graduation, Knez
will be teaching middleschool
math in Philadelphia,
while working
toward her master’s in education.
While at Georgetown,
Knez has devoted
countless hours to teaching
debate at younger levels
and bestowing her knowledge
upon others, including
students at GBN.
Greenstein knows this is
a crucial part to the success
of GBN’s debate program.
“One of the reason that
I believe our program is
successful is because our
alumni keep coming back
to help the program,” he
said. “That cycle of alumni
coming back to help, that
partially explains her success
and the success of the
current program and hopefully
we can continue that
mentoring coaching cycle
for years to come.”
Knez knows that her
time at GBN was a key element
to her success.
“Debate at GBN is
great. It’s certainly one of
the most well-supported
high-school debate teams
in the country,” she said.
“It’s given me a really solid
foundation for college.”