My favourite sport is debating

With the inaugural AFWL Showdown between the Crows and Port Power happening tonight I had some thoughts about my favourite sport. It's not played on the field.

When I started high school in the mid 90's I signed up as quick as I could to the sport that would be my passion for the rest of my life- public speaking and debating. I was never very good at sport sport. The only subject I ever failed was PE and the best part about skipping Year 9 was not having to do an extra year worth of compulsory sport. I was a bona fide nerd and so very proud of it.

What was unusual about this wasn't that I signed up to the debate squad. It was that we had one at all. I went to one of only two public all girls high schools in my state. The kids at my school did not hail from the privileged classes. We were working class, born and bred in what is now called a disadvantaged area, but was once spruiked as the City of the Future.

We didn't know this. We were just kids, signing up to do something fun. Something we enjoyed, something that allowed us to use our very mighty brains. We were smart girls and we loved it. We owned our smartness and our school encouraged it.

Our Coach, Ms Piesiewicz, was an exceptional teacher. She taught us how to think critically, how to write convincingly and how to argue passionately. She made us practice our public speaking skills, over and over again until we could speak off the cuff, on the fly and on any topic. She prepared us for anything, so that we could be everything we wanted.

When we were ready she marched us off in our blazers (communal ones, just for debating- this was public school) into the many privileged private boys schools in our state. I'll never forget the sniggers we would get as we walked in to their massive campuses. Public school girls, there to debate them? They thought it was a no-brainer.

It wasn't.

I will never forget the feeling of winning. I will never not enjoy the feeling of landing a debate, A debate won purely on merit, up against prejudice, entitlement and the boys club. When we went head to head with our private school peers, we held our own.

It was this feeling that made us want to do more. Sonja had the idea to hold a debating convention for country students. She thought that all kids should get the opportunity that we had been given to practice these important skills. Ms Piesiewicz supported us and for a week we turned an unused public school site that had been closed due to low enrolments into an amazing convention centre for students from all around the state to come and practice their debating skills. We paid it forward, spending our time to bring others on our amazing ride.

I'm excited for the little girls watching the Showdown tonight to have some amazing role models to look up to. All little girls need to know that they can be everything they want. I can't stand football, but I know this is important. That's why I learned to debate- to stand up for the rights of girls and women to be everything they want.

For a whole range of reasons I stopped debating many years ago. Somewhere along the way I accidentally bought into the narrative that there is a glass ceiling stopping women from being everything they want. It's there in law, in technology, in politics and in business. It's there in football.

Well, it was there in football. It's not anymore. It's not there in law anymore either. Yesterday Australia appointed a majority of female High Court Justices for the first time ever. I'd say that one's been dismantled.

I've decided it's time to crack out my debating skills again. We've got a few more glass ceilings to get rid of and I'm pretty good at debating. So is Sonja. So are those country students that came down to Adelaide for our convention.

Game. On.

Thanks Ms P :)