Debate Staff

Matthew Brandstetter
Director of Debate

Matthew Brandstetter (also known as Dr. B) is an experienced educational leader with 28 years of coaching in public speaking and debate. His teams have won top honors at prestigious competitions and qualified for national tournaments. He has received awards for excellence in teaching high school communication studies and currently coaches various forms of platform speaking, with his students earning national and regional honors. Additionally, he facilitated the TEDx@Beacon_Street speaking event in Boston, MA in November 2019.

Benjamin Hagwood
Coach

Benjamin Hagwood is a passionate educator and advocacy advocate. He has more than 2 decades of experience leading students to championships in speech and debate events amassing over 20+ national championships. Benjamin Hagwood I serves as our Director and Curriculum Lead ensuring that BL Debate Academy maintains its history of education, excellence and evolution.

Hunter McCullough
Coach

Hunter McCullough has been involved with speech debate for over half his life, and has judged, coached, and completed in a variety of formats. He brings his passion for strategy and research to BL Debate Academy to help students hone their speaking skills, learn to think critically, and advocate for themselves.

Dakota Folkerts
Coach

Dakota Folkerts is an experienced educator and student advocate with almost a decade of competition and coaching experience in debate. He has coached numerous teams to success in various debate formats and has personally qualified for national tournaments multiple times. He specializes in Public Forum, Congressional, and Big Questions Debate at BL Debate Academy.

Trevor Luckino
Coach

Trevor D. is an experienced public speaking and debate coach with over 12 years of experience. He has led his teams to first-place finishes at prestigious competitions like Odette School of Business, the Richard Pettie Ontario Debate Tournament, and Ontario Provincial Debate Championships. His work with underprivileged youth has earned him awards in public speaking. Trevor is passionate about coaching and inspiring his students to achieve their goals and maximize their potential.

Tamsin Connerly
Coach

Tamsin Connerly is a coach specializing in Congress and Public Forum. In her time as a competitor, she placed 13th at Nationals in Senate Congress, was a finalist at Princeton and Apple Valley in Congress, was a finalist at Duke in Public Forum, and qualified to the Tournament of Champions in both events. She is currently a student at Duke University.

Timothy Colledge
Coach

Timothy Colledge is a dedicated debate teacher and debater with over five years of experience teaching carious styles to students of all ages and abilities. As an award- winning debater in Public Forum and World Schools debate, Timothy finished third at Nationals and held the number one rank in New England in 2021. Currently attending Hamilton College, he also leads its debate team. Timothy’s favorite aspect of teaching is inspiring his students to find the same passion for debate that he has.

What Students Say About Us

Testimonials
The teacher is very patient, he is very nice, and even though I attended his class before, I still learned a lot of new things and on top of that, I had a lot of fun!
The strengths of the course was that Mr. Hagwood taught us in a very good and effective way. We had fun but we still learned a lot of things. Even though I had attended one of Mr. Hagwood's classes before, I still learned new things in this summer course.

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Tel: 604-360-1933

Address: 418-2150 West Broadway, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6K 4L9