CHICAGO — Charles Rosentel, a former Sandy Hook resident and a 2002 graduate of Newtown High School, is still celebrating winning Debate Coach of the Year at the Chicago Debates City Championship at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, on March 22.

According to the National Association for Urban Debate Leagues (NAUDL) website, the Coach of the Year award recognizes teachers who help students “become more academically successful and civically engaged through the support and rigor of debate.”

The win came as a surprise to Rosentel, now a debate coach at Pritzker College Prep, who only learned that he won National Debate Coach of the Year at the award ceremony.

“As my co-coach was walking up to the stage to give a speech for whoever won, that’s when I realized, ‘Oh wow. That’s me,’” Rosentel explained.

Rosentel describes NAUDL as an organization that supports 20 debate league partners in 20 different cities. Each league is asked to nominate one coach for NAUDL’s annual Coach of the Year award. Chicago Debates, the debate league for Chicago, ended up nominating Rosentel.

Winning the award came with a lot of other things Rosentel said he didn’t know about initially. He and one of his debaters, Natalyah Assria, were highlighted in a FOX 32 Chicago spotlight. Rosentel was also invited to give an acceptance speech at the NAUDL Annual Dinner at the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta on April 3.

This marks the first time any city has had a second coach win the Coach of the Year award, according to Rosentel. He said someone from Chicago won the award when it started around ten or so years ago, but that no one else from the Windy City had won since then until he did.

It was a full circle moment for Rosentel, not only because Northwestern happens to be his alma mater, but also because of his love and passion for debate.

“I mean, at first I was shocked and surprised, but now I feel a burden I’m happy to carry, which is to use the award to make arguments in favor of more people engaging in debate and supporting debate,” Rosentel said.

The Pros Of Debate

When Rosentel went to NHS, he did a type of debate called Junior State of America, which was student-led. By his senior year, he became the president of JSA. According to Rosentel, every topic at the tournament was different, with potentially around 40 different debates happening at once on unique topics.

This passion for debate carried into his teaching career. Rosentel said he started assistant coaching the debate team at Farragut Career Academy in Chicago during his first year of teaching 18 years ago, and that he “kept coaching ever since.”

Rosentel continued coaching at The Collins Academy High School and later Pritzker College Prep, where he’s taught for 13 years.

As for what kept him coaching debate after all these years, Rosentel said he’s seen the immense positive impact debate has on students. He noted that many people assume the best debaters are the biggest talkers, but he believes the best debaters are the strongest and most careful listeners.

“And I think watching students who might be shy, might not be the big talkers, come in and see them transform, gain confidence ... learn more about what’s going on in the world, and find success outside of debate rounds, especially beyond high school, has been what’s kept me in,” Rosentel said.

One of his debaters started as a shy freshman who would hide in his sleeves and stare at his shoes. He eventually became captain of the debate team, graduated from the University of Illinois, and is now working as a caseworker for a group that supports Latino immigrants.

Rosentel said that many other of his other former debaters, captains in particular, have gone on to graduate from Stanford University, Pomona College, and a bunch of other top schools. Even the ones who don’t go to nationally-known schools, he said, operate at a much higher level than before they got into debate.

“It allows them to better understand the world around them, form informed opinions about that world, speak up more in class, and be able to occupy whatever space they want to without having other people make them feel as though they don’t belong,” Rosentel said.

Preparing for debate competitions is far easier said than done. Rosentel said they probably have the longest season of any sport he knows, starting in early September and going until late March. They practice for around an hour and ten minutes twice a week, and then have a two-day tournament about once a month.

“If you look at all my debaters, how many hours they put in collectively, it’s 2,363 hours,” Rosentel said. “And that’s not counting whatever they’re doing on their own, that’s just practices and tournaments.”

Many students will practice at home, changing their arguments or reading their speeches out loud, making sure to fine-tune everything before their debate tournaments.

Rosentel said his school participates in Novice, Junior Varsity, and Varsity categories, and that they won a JV championship three times this year, including their conference championship.

In that time, Rosentel said his debaters have grown into a strong, close-knit community. During his acceptance speech at the NAUDL Annual Dinner, Rosentel shared anecdotes from student after student who got involved in debate and the positive impact it had on their lives.

“I have never coached alone. Instead, I’ve benefited from the talents and support of program managers and well over a dozen co-coaches,” Rosentel said during his acceptance speech. “This is for all the wins that come beyond debate rounds, even the ones we can’t quite measure, even the ones we didn’t see coming.”

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Reporter Jenna Visca can be reached at jenna@thebee.com.