Xavier coach Steve Running says his two attorney-coaches had called it a virtual tie, but Running felt his team had been the clear winner. By the luck of the draw, Xavier had found itself prosecuting, which it was much better at than defending, Running says.
A few minutes later, the judges returned to the courtroom and spent some time congratulating both sides, offering tips and compliments.
Then, the state of Arizona learned that it had a new mock-trial high school champion.
Xavier College Preparatory.
Central High School lost its final round and ended up in fourth place, but Diana Krauss insists it wasn't a difficult loss to take. Competing against Deer Valley in the fourth round had been the team's real prize, she says. And besides, Deer Valley's loss to Xavier had much greater implications.
Gates says the Deer Valley players kept a stiff upper lip and, like always, spent their post-contest evening at Fuddrucker's restaurant to tell war stories.
Running says his Xavier team had seemed relaxed during the trial, and for some reason, Deer Valley had seemed stiff. "They weren't really themselves," he says.
Perhaps it had been the Xavier strategy to object often, if only to throw off the Deer Valley attorneys. "You make objections, maybe unnecessarily, at the beginning to see what the judge will allow. It broke Deer Valley's rhythm. I used to be an athletic coach, and you see what the referees are going to let you get away with. Unfortunately, mock trial's like a game. I approach it like an athletic event," says the chemistry teacher.
He's candid about other things that bother him as his teen attorneys prepare for a much more convoluted case at the national championships next month.
Mock-trial students learn great skills for their college careers and beyond, but they're also learning the things that have given attorneys a miserable public image.
"I'd hate to think that the attorney-coach's role is to teach boys and girls how to lie. They put it differently and don't like to say that, but if you look at it, that's what the kids are learning," Running says. It concerned him enough to raise the issue with Xavier's principal when he was offered the job as teacher-coach two years ago. "This is a private Catholic school, so hopefully we're concerned more about our kids having better morals. I told the principal when I took the job that I had this problem about the program, and she replied that this is the way it is in real courtrooms, this is how it happens in real life, whether we like it or not."
Several times Running compares what happens in mock trial to the O.J. Simpson case, afraid that Arizona is creating a horde of Johnnie Cochranes.
"Back to back in three hours, we won both prosecution and defense cases. We proved this guy both guilty and innocent. But that's lost on the girls, who are more concerned about their performances. It doesn't seem to bother them," Running says.
Kathy Hedges reacted with shock at Running's complaints about the program. "I don't see us teaching students to lie, I don't see us teaching them to play outside the rules. I just don't think that's true at all. The students do know that mock trial is a game, but I strongly disagree with the idea that we teach kids to lie."
Central coach Diana Krauss similarly objects, saying that mock-trial goals aren't so cynical. "We're teaching them how to act and be believable. Not teaching them to lie," she says.
Nearly all participants agreed that the Cho controversy revealed an alarming rise in competitiveness in the program.
"Some schools are convinced that we're cheaters," says Central's Emily Cuatto, and she's afraid the Central team will become the Tanya Harding of mock trial in the mind of judges.
Albert Cho says it's neither judges nor students who are driving mock trial to competitive extremes.
"It's not the kids so much as the parents," he says. "They're instilling in their kids the qualities that people don't like about lawyers. Maybe that's why lawyers get the reputation they do, because they want to win at all costs."
As Arizona's mock-trial program continues to expand, other schools may begin to wonder if the program's claims to build character are as hollow as the same claims made by athletic departments.
No doubt just as many will defend mock trial for the success it makes of its graduates such as former mock-trial competitors Bill Gates and Tim Hyland.
For others, the rewards are more immediate. Says talented mock-trial star Megan Nielsen about her four-year odyssey in the grueling discipline, "I just wanted to argue in a setting that was acceptable and wouldn't get me grounded."
Contact Tony Ortega at his online address: tortega@newtimes.com
