Travis

When I first got to Kansas State, I walked onto the debate team. Nobody recruited debaters from my neck of the woods in Colorado, and there would have been no way that the KSU folks would have known about me. That didn't matter; I wanted to debate for fun since I was hell-bent on becoming a Veterinarian at the time. That particular year was a rebuilding one for KSU, and Ed Schiappa was only in his second year as coach; we had nothing but freshmen, a couple of JuCo transfers, some walk-ons, and two returning veterans.

I think Ed must have been impressed with the fact I had been the CO State Champion, without knowing the facts I have commented on before. As a result, when we had our first "try-out" debates, and I was really bad, he relegated me to the bottom of the pile, deservedly, and assigned me to my first debate partner, Travis.

Now, this particular group of people on the team had some real color. For example, there was returning veteran Bryan, who was a coke addict and crazy leftist. The first words he ever spoke to me when I met him were, "what do you think about nuclear energy?" There was weird JuCo transfer, Ted, who thought he was God's gift to women when he made most of them squirm. There was the bodybuilder, Pete, and his effeminate friend Thom, whom I later lived with for a year. And then there was Mark, who prefered to be called, "Mr. X," and would recite his own poetry in forensic matches. But I had Travis.

Travis was your literal stereotype of the Kansas country bumpkin. He was a big, fleshy guy who wore overalls and before he went to college had never been more than 30 miles away from his family farm. Travis was not a stupid guy, but he was definitely not experienced in the ways of the world. He was convinced that someday he would be Governor of Kansas. And he was very active politically, a crazy Kansas conservative long before that became the norm. The guy was drunk with the potential for power. He would ask me, "Steve, when I become Governor, what Cabinet position do you want?" He would also describe how when he died, he wanted a big mausoleum for himself.

Now, I myself was politically conservative at the time. That's what happens when you grow up in Colorado Springs in a military family. But Travis was off the charts. And what appalled me most was that he wasn't in it for public service. He wanted power. When I look back, I think it was Travis that started me down the long road that got me today where I am as a good liberal. He scared me. But he was so comical in the way he would advance his position, you didn't know whether to laugh or cry. He had no nuance.

Travis and I would get into the most stupid arguments. The beauty of the Kansas Flint Hills vs. Colorado. One notable late night argument was about the benefits of big cars v. little cars (I was driving a Honda Civic hatchback at the time, a conversation Schiappa unfortunately heard through the motel walls and never stopped giving me shit about). I think I argued with him just to argue, because I was just overwhelmed at his outrageousness.

As a debater, it quickly became clear that Travis was nowhere in my league, and I don't want to sound high and mighty about that, but it was just true. He wasn't very good and his brain didn't work fast enough to capture a lot of small things that happen in a debate round. I carried him from round to round. Eventually, I had to take over the insides on affirmative.

It also became clear that the only thing Travis would be drunk on was power. He wouldn't touch alcohol, because he was convinced it would destroy his political career. We finally got him drunk for the first time my sophomore year and hilarity ensued. He also had other quirks: he wouldn't eat any food cooked in a microwave, because he knew it would cause him cancer. But, whenever we would stop at a Sizzler or something on the way back from a debate, Travis would challenge everyone to an eating contest. He was very competititve in his own way. I guess because, I'm not joking, he had finished second nationally or something in a tractor driving championship.

But as we continued to debate, Travis started demonstrating other things. We were at one tournament where we came up against another junior team from Wichita State. As we were waiting for the judge to show up, Travis and I were making small talk with the other team, when Travis let loose a bomb: "So, do you have a lot of blacks at Wichita?"

In retrospect, I really don't think Travis was being consciously bigoted or mean; I think the guy just grew up in a bubble where he had no experience and didn't know any better than to ask honest questions he had in his head. On the other hand, I do remember confronting Travis about one day and he said, "I'm not prejudiced. I just think white people are better than black people." So, who knows?

Then there was the time we debated at the very last KSU tournament for the Schiappa years. It just so happened that the same day, KSU was playing KU in football in Manhattan. Travis was a trombonist in the KSU marching band. He was very proud of this fact. He would brag that during the playing of "Wabash Cannonball," his trombone would go higher than all the others. Travis was going to have to play at halftime, but we had a couple of debates to do before he left. In fact, the last debate I did all by myself, to my relief, actually. In our last debate before he left, Travis insisted on debating in his full band uniform. It took every ounce of my persuasive skills to convince him not to where his freaking hat during the round. You know, those huge, ridiculous marching band hats they had in the 80s. But that's not all. As debaters know, you write the code of your school and your names and positions up on the blackboard before the round to assist the judge. At the time, we would just usually write "KSU CS," or sometimes, with the right judge, we would make fun of our then-awful football team and write "Mildcats" up on the board. This would not sit with Travis. He insisted that we should write the entire official name of KSU: "Kansas State University of Agriculture and Applied Sciences." Whenever I would turn my back or go out of the room, he would change it. "You have to have pride in your school, Steve," he would say.

The last moment came in our last tournament together at Wichita State that fall. We had a round against the SMS team of Brian Greene and Bill Boggs. Now, at this time, Greene and Boggs were in a state of, well, how should I put this, flamboyance; Brian, because that's who he is, and Bill, probably just for shock value. We shared an elevator going to the room. Travis had to stand next to Brian. The guy was ramrod straight and white as a ghost. During the round, he stammered way more than usual. Reach your own conclusions. I had had enough. I went to Schiappa after the round and told him I would never debate with Travis again. And I never did, after that tournament.

The weird thing is, deep down inside, I think Travis is a pretty decent guy. He has feelings and he has empathy. What he didn't have at the time is experience. And that made him into more of a buffoon than he should have been. He tried going into politics, even got elected to student government. But I think that was the beginning of his downfall. The guy had no political skills in terms of nuance and compromise. And after school, he was quickly left out, I think. Last I've seen or heard of him, he's a farmer. And he's probably listening to Rush Limbaugh and still thinking of that mausoleum to himself. I ridiculed the guy a lot, but I also felt for him because he was just so naive. I hope he's well.