By Jon Stroshine
The Taylor University Ethics Bowl team finished second at the Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl in San Antonio Thursday, losing the championship match to Depauw University by a single point, 154-153. Despite the narrow margin of defeat, the team responded well, according to Ethics Bowl Coach Jim Spiegel. "They took it so well, with such dignity and class," Spiegel said. "The only complaints we heard were by other team members of other teams and coaches who kept telling us that they thought we . . . should've won." The competition lasted from approximately 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Thursday, according to Spiegel, and involved 32 teams from all across the nation. Each team played three preliminary matches. Taylor advanced from the preliminaries with a 2-1 record, then defeated Metropolitan State University of Denver and defending champion Whitworth to reach the final against Depauw. Taylor senior and Team Captain Tom Weingartner said the squad used a balanced approach to achieve success. "No one person has all the information," Weingartner said. "It was not a one-person team...everyone had their role and their strength."
For each head-to-head match, organizers presented the two teams with an ethical dilemma. One team started with a ten-minute defense of their position, followed by a five-minute counter-argument from the other team, five minutes for a counter-argument from the first team, and questions from the judges. Then the teams were presented with another situation, with the order of arguments reversed. Each match lasted around an hour and was scored by three judges, usually college professors, lawyers, or someone with a background in ethics. "In previous years, I remember thinking 'Would one of my teams be ready for that stage?'" Spiegel said. "They were just as freewheeling and relaxed, but very intense and focused, as they were . . . in the earlier matches." The eight Taylor students who made the trip, along with coaches Spiegel and Cathy Kerton-Johnson, are scheduled to arrive back on campus early Sunday morning. "It was tough, but at the same time it was a really cool moment," Weingartner said. "You finally stop and go, 'We just got second place in the entire nation, that's pretty darn good."
