In this series, we spotlight great debaters of BAUDL’s past and present. Today, we offer the inspiring profile of Mya Whitaker, 2009 City League Champion and National Qualifier from Oakland’s Skyline High School.

Skyline High debater and city champion Mya Whitaker in action, 2009

Mya Whitaker’s first trip to Chicago was not for a visit to the Sears Tower or the Field Museum. Mya traveled 1,500 miles from her Oakland home for the critiques, mountains of evidence, and ballots. This 2009 graduate of Skyline High School experienced the Windy City from the seat of a desk, to the beeping of a timer, and in front of her cheering family – as a debater in the prestigious Chase Urban Debate National Championship. National qualification was not just an incredible accomplishment for Mya, but the turning point in Mya’s high school career. “My friends kind of fell off during their senior years be it drugs or pregnancy,” Mya recalls. “Even when my best friend passed, I stuck to debate and didn’t let things faze me.” Debate, Mya explains, was “the tunnel vision I needed.”

All it took was one year – and it began in debate class. After a junior year filled with hazing and threats from other students, Mya garnered newfound respect as one of Skyline’s top debaters. With encouragement from Skyline coach Christopher Scheer, Mya channeled her energy into policy arguments. She dominated the Bay Area Urban Debate League (BAUDL), ultimately qualifying for the National Championship. In just two semesters, Mya’s high school life dramatically changed and began to echo the success of her debate life. “Random people in the hallway would congratulate me,” Mya says. “If I didn’t join debate, I wouldn’t have enjoyed my senior year.”

For Mya, debate has been life changing. She explains, “Debate changed the way I handled and viewed social communication.” As an experienced debater, Mya was able to diplomatically resolve her conflicts in the halls of Skyline, choosing language over fists. Though armed with an aggressive cross-examination and a penchant for slamming her hands on desks to emphasize arguments, Mya reserved her impassioned style for debate rounds: “Debate put more emphasis and power behind my words, made me more articulate, and made my words stick.”

Mya’s experience was so profound that today, as a freshman chemistry major working her way through San Francisco State University, she serves as a mentor to the debate program at the Fremont Federation of High Schools in Oakland and was recruited to participate on her collegiate team. She uses debate “as that platform of confidence to stand on.” Mya now aspires to work in forensic science or attend law school. She harbors equally l goals for BAUDL: “We need to reach out to more kids and to more schools. Debate should become as popular as football.”