Remembering legendary debate team coach JW Patterson
Longtime University of Kentucky College of Communication and Information Professor and legendary debate team coach JW Patterson passed away over the holiday break at the age of 95. Services for Patterson will take place later this month or early February. Any campus events will be communicated at a later time.
“It is fair to say that no one has ever had a bigger footprint on the world of speech and debate,” said David Arnett, director of UK Debate. “Dr. Patterson’s legacy spans generations and has touched the lives of thousands. He was an elite debate coach, a passionate educator and the brilliant architect of what would become the modern competitive debate ecosystem in this country. What I will remember him for most, though, is his love of friends and community.”
The following is a history of the UK Debate program, written last year, focusing on Patterson’s historic contributions.
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After several years of working with the debate team, Dr. JW Patterson would take over as director of the program in 1971, a position he would hold until 2008. During that time, the UK Debate sent 21 first-round teams to the National Debate Tournament and had six top speakers at the tournament, the second-highest number of all time. Under Patterson’s leadership, the team brought home a national championship in 1986, a runner-up in 2002 and a Copeland Award, given to the top-ranked team in the nation, in 1994. Remarkably, the Patterson era included top 10 teams in four different decades.
Throughout the 1970s, Kentucky was one of the most dominant teams in the country. Among the accomplishments were an NDT top speaker (Gilbert Skillman), two NDT semi-finals appearances (Skillman and Mary Thomson, Jim Flegle and Ben Jones) and several first round bids (Flegle and Jones, Skillman and Thomson, Skillman and Gerry Oberst twice).
The team continued their winning ways into the 1980s with a national championship in 1986 (Ouita Papka and David Brownell). The decade would include two NDT top speakers (Jeff Jones, Steve Mancuso), three semi-final appearances and 10 first round bids. The list of first round teams included two teams ranked second (Mancuso and Jones, Michael Mankins and Papka).
T. A. McKinney and Calvin Rockefeller propelled UK Debate into the 1990s by earning a first-round bid in 1990. McKinney would go on to collect a first-round bid in each of his four years, in addition to an NDT top speaker award in 1991. Through the first half of the ‘90s, UK Debate continued to build on this early success, with much credit owed to Paul Skiermont. Skiermont collected two NDT top speaker awards (one of only three individuals to ever win the award twice), a Copeland Award (Jason Patil and Skiermont) and a runner-up Copeland year (Jay Finch and Skiermont), among other accomplishments. Several other prominent members of the team contributed to the collection of top 16 finishes including Cy Kiani, Jonathan Reeve, Jason Renzelmann, David Walsh and Trevor Wells.
Kentucky would start the new century with a bang, reaching the finals of the National Debate Tournament in 2002 (Hubbard and Tetzlaff). Between 2000 and 2008 Kentucky would qualify for the NDT seven times and reach the elimination rounds an impressive four times.
Patterson was a longtime faculty member in the Department of Communication and an active contributor for many activities and organizations on the UK campus.
During his tenure at Kentucky, Dr. Patterson founded the Tournament of Champions, as well as the Kentucky National High School Debate Institute, both of which attracted top high school debaters from across the country. He also founded the nationally acclaimed Henry Clay College Debate Tournament, as well as the unique Kentucky Thoroughbred Round Robin, which still attracts the top seven college teams in America every October in Lexington, Kentucky.
Dr. Patterson has been active in various speeches and debate organizations, having served on the National Debate Tournament Committee, and, with a colleague at Northwestern University, Dr. David Zarefsky, co-authored “Contemporary Debate.” He also served several terms as president of the Kentucky Speech Association.
In the 1960s, Dr. Patterson served as special assistant to UK President John Oswald when he directed the University’s 100th birthday, which consisted of more than 100 special events over a yearlong period that included a Founder’s Day visit by President Lyndon B. Johnson.
Dr. Patterson was an instructor in debate and forensics for almost 60 years, including nine years as director of Debate and Forensics at Muskogee Central High School, Muskogee, Oklahoma; one year as director of debate at the University of Arizona and 40 years as director of debate and forensics at UK.