What’s your name and grade? My name is Will Sterbenc, I’m a junior.
What’s your debate strategy? So, me and my partner, Saad Khan, we love to do some stupid strategies that are intentionally not in line with the normal debate strategies. So we have a lot of arguments that are about philosophy and performance instead of the normal ones about policymaking to confuse our opponents a little bit. It’s mostly mind games. Before the round, we often blast music. No one really knows that other than us. And then during the rounds, we’ll read poetry and other things, and then just mess with them during their cross-examination. And just in general, it’s just a whole mind game that you have to play in order to win.
Who’s your best friend? Either Jonah Diehl or Max Rappaport. They’re my homies.
Why do you play tennis? The main [reason] is it’s a fun sport. I started playing with my mom when I was like five or four because my mom was really good at tennis. She was All-State in Indiana when she was in high school. And she could have played in college, and she didn’t, but she’s always loved tennis, and always encouraged me to do it. I didn’t really take this competitively until high school. But I saw that there was a tennis team. I was like, “Wow, that’s a great, great idea. I’ll join.” And I made varsity freshman year I was like, whoa, whoa. So it was mostly my mom.
Describe your music taste. I kinda listen to like everything. But my main genres are like, I listen to some rap. Not a ton. I had a big Taylor Swift phase that I’ve slowly grown out of, but now it’s more indie. So it’s stuff like TV Girl. Stuff like that, big fan. But I just listen to everything. I listen to some jazz every once in a while.
What’s your favorite Taylor Swift era? Folklore. Or Lover.
Would you say you are more similar or more different than your twin brother? We’re pretty different. We live together, we share a room, but like we do a lot of different things. I’m much more into like debate and stuff like that. [Henry] likes more sporty things. We’re both in tennis largely because of our mom. But he does soccer and did basketball while I was just doing tennis and debate my freshman year and now we’re slowly converging to like, somewhat more similar things to each other. But is it in general like our interests have always been different. Our friend groups are always pretty different. So like, we put up with each other, but it’s like the actual things we do in our day-to-day lives are pretty different.
What’s a misconception about you that some people have? A lot of people think I’m like super duper outgoing. And it’s like, sometimes [I am], but for the most part, I just like chillin’ with the gang, chillin’ with my friend group. I talk to people that I don’t know if I have to, just like, conversation if I’m bored, but I think it’s like, people often take me as someone who will go out intentionally and just talk with people that I don’t know and like spend time with people I don’t know. And I would just much prefer like, chill. Like, I wouldn’t call myself an introvert but I would say I was somewhere in between, not like super far extroverted like people sometimes think I am.
What TV or movie character do you relate to? Patrick from SpongeBob, I think he’s pretty funny. I remember a line from something he said was, “Is mayonnaise an instrument?” And I was that attitude towards life man, where anything could be an instrument. Changed my life. I live by that.
What motto do you live by? One of the people that graduated two years ago, who did debate, he always said before my rounds, “Go, fight, win.” And I think that to myself every time I go into like a stressful situation. So before debates, I think, “Go, fight, win.” Before tests, I think “Go, fight, win.”
