vbi 2024 Leadership
Chris Theis is the Executive Director of VBI, and of one of the most accomplished coaches and competitors in the history of Lincoln-Douglas debate.
Currently coaching at The Marlborough School in California, Chris has also coached at Palos Verdes Peninsula High School (CA), Lexington High School (MA), Apple Valley High School (MN), and Trinity Preparatory School (FL).
As a coach, Chris's students have consistently advanced to elimination rounds at the Tournament of Champions, the National Debate Coaches Association National Tournament, and the National Speech and Debate Association National Tournament.
His students have won nearly every major invitational tournament—many of them multiple times—including the Tournament of Champions, the NDCA National Tournament, Harvard, Berkeley, Greenhill, St. Mark’s, Apple Valley, Emory, Blake, Stanford, CPS, Lexington, Loyola, Damus, Golden Desert, Alta, the Greenhill Round Robin, the MBA Round Robin, and more.
As a competitor, Chris is one of only three juniors to ever win the Tournament of Champions and remains the only person to have won it twice. He was the champion of tournaments including Blake, Emory, the Iowa Round Robin (twice), the Greenhill Round Robin (twice), and St. Marks (twice). Additionally, Chris was a semifinalist at Greenhill and the Glenbrooks, as well as a finalist at Berkeley. He was a four-time qualifier to the NSDA National Tournament in Lincoln-Douglas, U.S. Extemp Speaking, and Congressional Debate.
Chris currently serves on the Tournament of Champions Lincoln-Douglas Committee and the National Speech Association Lincoln-Douglas Wording Committee. He has also been a member of the National Debate Coaches Association’s Executive Committee.
As a coach, his students have consistently reached elimination rounds at the Tournament of Champions, and have placed in the top 6 of the NSDA National Tournament. His students have won nearly every major invitational tournament (some multiple times) including: Harvard, Berkeley, Greenhill, St. Mark’s, the Minneapple, Emory, Stanford, CPS, Lexington, Loyola, Damus, Golden Desert, Alta, the Greenhill Round Robin, and others.
As a competitor, he was one of only three juniors to ever win the Tournament of Champions and is the only person to win the tournament twice. He was the champion of Blake, Emory, the Iowa Round Robin twice, the Greenhill Round Robin twice, and St. Marks twice. Chris was also a semi finalist at Greenhill and the Glenbrooks, and a finalist at Berkeley. Chris was a four year qualifier to the NSDA National Tournament in Lincoln-Douglas, U.S. Extemp Speaking, and Congressional Debate.
Jake Nebel is Executive Director of Victory Briefs and Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University. He previously taught at the University of Southern California, after receiving his PhD from New York University, AB from Princeton, and BPhil from Oxford, where he was a Marshall Scholar. As a coach, Jake’s students have won the Tournament of Champions, the NDCA National Championship, the Dukes & Bailey Cup, the Glenbrooks, the Harvard Round Robin, the New York City Invitational, the Barkley Forum at Emory, the TFA State Tournament, and other national, regional, and local championships. As a debater, he won the Glenbrooks (twice), Greenhill (twice), Harvard, Emory, Bronx, the Bronx Round Robin, the MBA Round Robin, the VBT Round Robin, and the Florida State Tournament, was in finals of NSDA Nationals, and was top speaker at the Tournament of Champions, Greenhill, Harvard, Bronx (twice), the Bronx Round Robin (twice), Yale (twice), the Vassar Round Robin, the Crestian Classic, and the Florida State Tournament. He attended VBI three times as a student and has worked at 35 sessions.
Cale McCrary is the Director of Public Forum at VBI. Cale served as the Director of Speech and Debate at Westlake High School through 2023, and the Director at Corona del Sol High School through 2020. Cale’s Public Forum teams have accumulated over 50 bids to the Tournament of Champions, with finals appearances and championships at the New York City Invitational, Arizona State University Invitational, Barkley Forum at Emory, Grapevine Classic and Golden Desert UNLV Tournament.
Rodrigo Paramo has been coaching high school debate for over a decade and joined the Greenhill coaching staff as a full-time classroom teacher in 2022. In his time as a coach, Rodrigo has coached multiple state champions in Lincoln-Douglas debate, and his students have consistently championed or competed in late elimination rounds at major high school debate tournaments. In his first year working with the Greenhill debate team, one of his students won the Dukes & Bailey Cup for Season-Long Excellence, awarded to the highest-performing high school debater over the course of a debate season. Rodrigo believes deeply in the power of debate to challenge the way students think about the world, inculcate critical thinking skills that extend far past any individual debate round, and to build life-long friendships.
SunHee Simon has participated in debate since the 7th grade and has been a championship debater in Lincoln Douglas, World Schools Debate, and Policy Debate. In 2015, she was one of only two people to qualify to the Tournament of Champions in CX and LD. Her freshman year at Stanford University, she earned the semifinal title at the Cross Examination Debate Association (CEDA) national tournament. Now, she coaches students independently, having gotten a variety of students to late elims, finals, and/or championships of national tournaments like the Glenbrooks, NDCA, Berkeley, Emory, and the TOC. She is currently a full time teacher at Coppell High School where she continues to coach speech and debate.
Expertise: Kritik Debate, Traditional Debate, Research
Andy Stubbs is the Curriculum Director of VBI and a curriculum specialist for the Houston Urban Debate League. He works with the Houston chapter of Rikers Debate Project teaching debate to students held in Harris County Jail.
Devane is a senior instructor at Victory Briefs. Devane is a former debater for Rutgers-Newark and Newark Science. With Rutgers Newark, Devane won the 2017 CEDA National Championship and the 2017 NDT. He also was the top Speaker of the 2017 NDT. Devane has coached on the college and high school level and has coached multiple qualifiers to the TOC, CEDA nationals, the NDT and debaters to late elimination rounds at national tournaments throughout the season. Devane has also taught top lab at a number of Policy and LD camps.
Expertise: Policy Arguments, Kritik Debate, Ethos, Research, Winning
Nick Smith is a Director of Instructional Design & Curriculum at Victory Briefs. He studied Political Science and Philosophy at the University of Minnesota. He was the Director of Debate at Hopkins for four years, a coach at St. Thomas Academy & The Visitation School, in addition to privately coaching several students. He now is the head coach at Apple Valley High School. His students have won multiple state championships, reached late elimination rounds at many major national tournaments, received numerous round robin invitations, and have frequently qualified to the TOC, NSDA Nationals, NDCA Nationals, and NCFLs. This will be Nick’s twelfth summer at VBI!
Expertise: Policy Arguments, Kritik Debate, Philosophy Debate, Traditional Debate, Research
Amadea Datel is a senior at Dartmouth College who debated college policy at both Columbia and Dartmouth. She reached the quarterfinals at the Gonzaga Jesuit Debates and won the University of Minnesota College Invitational, the Crowe Warken Debates at USNA, and the Mid America Championship, ranking as the 25th team nationally her sophomore year. In high school, she built and coached her school’s LD debate team, won several tournaments in Massachusetts, and was the top speaker and a semifinalist at the MSDL State Championship and the first student from her school to qualify for NSDA and NCFL Nationals, clearing at the former. She is currently the Newsletter Editor at the Victory Briefs Institute and an Assistant Coach at Apple Valley High School.
Satvik Mahendra competed in PF at Plano West. Over the course of his career, he was ranked as high as #1 in the nation, earned 16 bids to the TOC, and qualified to the TOC and NSDA Nationals three times. Notably, he finished 4th at 2022 NSDA Nationals, won the Bellaire, Arizona State, and Holy Cross tournaments, quarterfinaled Harvard, Grapevine, and Bronx, and was 3rd speaker at Glenbrooks. He's also served as his team's PF Captain and has privately coached over a dozen students to competitive success. His favorite parts of debate are analytics, lay adaptation, and weighing, and he's excited to work at VBI this summer!