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Ashland debate coach plans to retire AHS might not be able to replace Tredway, whose teams won 10 state titles By JOHN DARLING for the Mail Tribune ASHLAND - John Tredway, the highly successful Ashland High School speech-debate coach who pioneered discussions between students from the United States and Cuba, has announced he will retire in June after 30 years. The state budget crunch raised an immediate question as to whether AHS can hire a coach to replace him. Tredway's debaters have won more than 1,200 first-place awards, and 105 of them have qualified for the National Speech Tournament. His teams have won three national awards for Excellence in Speech Education from the National Forensic League. Tredway is the Northwest's all-time coaching point leader for the National Forensic League. "I just worked extra hard at it," the 52-year-old Tredway said. "I plotted and strategized while my opponents were sleeping and I wasn't afraid to let kids be peer tutors. It's the most beneficial way to learn because one teacher can't be the fount of knowledge for everything. It was a fantastic way to get the kids motivated and it enabled everyone to succeed." Tredway said students who took part in the speech-debate program have gone on to a broad array of careers - including business, teaching, law, politics and broadcasting. Tredway's teams won 10 of the past dozen Class 4A (large school) state debates, 47 of 48 invitational tournaments and 13 National Qualifying Sweepstakes. "The draw of speech-debate has been the excitement of the competition," he said. "It's a lot harder to motivate kids for a grade than to go out with their peers and test their skills in competition. It ranks up there with the best sports in being able arouse that," Tredway added, noting the lack of a grade-point-average requirement for participation. AHS principal Julie Reynolds lauded Tredway for building community from diverse groups by using more experienced debaters to mentor younger ones. "He forged an outstanding career and put Ashland speech-debate on the map," Reynolds said. However, Reynolds noted Tredway's retirement comes at a time when an extreme state revenue shortfall threatens to cut $2 million from the Ashland school district budget, likely forcing teacher cutbacks. "We certainly hope we can hire (a replacement), but we're in the throes of budget now and we don't know if we're going to be able. We want to continue the program. We want to hire someone, best case, but if we're releasing teachers, it would be hard." After wrestling the proposal through federal government channels, Tredway took his AHS teams to Cuba during the last two school years, then brought teams from the island nation to debates in Washington, D.C. For his efforts, Tredway was honored with a state Innovator in Education award. Tredway said he and his wife, Gloria, a Southern Oregon University employee, plan to travel, then settle in Florida, where Tredway hopes to create an independent speech-debate organization, forming a U.S. team from high school debaters for competitions in Cuba and other nations. The debate team became the center of a controversy in June of 2001, after it was reported that several students had smoked marijuana in Oklahoma City, where the team was taking part in a competition. After a series of school-imposed punishments themselves became subject of debate, Tredway and other teachers threatened to cancel off-hours activities unless the board backed them up with a clear and firmly enforced drug policy. The school board is still working on the new policy. "I have nothing but positive feelings for how good it turned out," Tredway said. "The district got me an assistant coach and parents started coming on trips. I told the kids if there was another incident, the program is over. The kids came together and said (to the accused students), 'You're not going to ruin our program.' " John Darling is a free-lance writer living in Ashland. E-mail him at [email protected] . Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.