 In 1898, Mercer's champion orator, John Roach Straton, won the first Intercollegiate Oratorical Championships in Atlanta.Debate continued to be a significant intercollegiate sport for many years after that, with Walter F. George, namesake of Mercer's law school, leading a team to victory over the University of Georgia at the Mercer-Athens Debate in 1899.In March 2018, the student team of Jazmine Buckley and Kyle Bligen became the first all-African-American duo to win the National Parliamentary Debate championship at the nation's largest parliamentary debate tournament.