Beating out much larger teams, Sprague duo clinches national spot in constitution competition

It typically takes two dozen high school students to field a competitive team at Oregon’s constitutional law competition.

So when Sprague High School seniors Matthew Meyers and Colin Williams decided to take it on as a duo, they tempered their expectations.

Competing at the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse in Portland in January meant delivering 12 speeches on various aspects of the U.S. Constitution, its history and its interpretation, then fielding six minutes of questions from judges, lawyers and other experts after each speech.

“It was a great day, we had so much fun with it. We were locked in,” Meyers said.

Still, when it came time to announce awards at the end of the day, the duo wasn’t expecting to be named runner up for the entire state.

“We were too stunned to cheer,” Williams said. “All the other teams started cheering for us.”

The duo’s teacher, Jaqueline Pope, was also stunned by her students’ success.

“That was just outrageous that they got second in state,” Pope said. “Lots of happy tears from my side.”

With the win secured the boys are in Washington D.C. this week to compete in the national “We the People” constitution competition, put on by the Center for Civic Education. It’s a competition Oregon schools have historically done well in, earning six national titles over 20 years, along with numerous top 10 finishes among 48 competitors.

The Sprague team’s unlikely triumph has drawn international donations toward their travel costs and recognition from constitutional law teachers and participants across the country, Pope said.

Pope has taught a constitutional law course at Sprague for years, but wasn’t able to offer it this year. Generally, students have to be part of a class to field a competitive team.

But Williams and Meyers weren’t easily deterred. The pair met in a social studies class freshman year, arguing about the definition of “homicide.” 

They quickly began playing Wordle together and having long intellectual discussions, trading phrases from Supreme Court opinions they thought were well-written.

“Everything we do, we do together,” Myers said.

After an AP government class with Pope, they wanted to continue their studies. 

Pope petitioned the Sprague administration to allow them to take an independent study with her during a period she was teaching another class so they would be able to compete. She also postponed her maternity leave to the second semester this school year so she could help them prepare in the fall.

“You don’t suppress that excitement and engagement,” she said.

To compete, the duo prepared speeches on a list of topics including the challenges the United States faced under the Articles of Confederation and the reasons the framers delegated election administration to the states.

Often, their preparation involves hours-long conversation hashing out the particulars, while reading law review articles on the topic at hand. 

Both are the children of lawyers and said they enjoy the intellectual exercise of reasoning through a philosophical and historical issue.

Williams’ first academic love is computer science, which generally has a right and wrong answer. He said he’s grown to appreciate the less black and white approach to reasoning and constitutional argument.

“Feeling like an idiot is a really good feeling sometimes because it means there’s so much more to learn and so much more to figure out,” Williams said.

Myers likes to write and hopes to someday go into medicine. He said legal argument blends philosophy, history and English in a way he enjoys.

“It’s kind of where all the humanities come together. There’s something from each of the humanities to be loved,” he said.

Both said being a small team gave them an advantage during the question and answer portion of the competition. Larger school teams of 24 to 36 students typically have coaches, often don’t do their own research and write only one speech for the competition.

Because the Sprague duo tackles so many topics and learn through discussion, they’re able to easily have a dialogue with the judges, they said.

The pair will meet with U.S. Rep. Andrea Salinas and U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley while in Washington D.C. this week.

“People are really excited. This is a huge deal,” Pope said. “A team of two will never happen again.”

Contact reporter Rachel Alexander: [email protected] or 503-575-1241.

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