Chetan Hertzig is the head coach of Harrison High School in New York. He has coached a TOC champion, an NCFL national champion and two runner-ups (plus two NCFL semifinalists), an NSDA Nationals runner-up, a Greenhill tournament champion, Greenhill round robin champion, and two Greenhill top speakers (plus two runner-ups and three top speakers), three Glenbrooks champions and two runner-ups, four Harvard tournament champions and a Harvard round robin champion, three Bronx runner-ups and one top speaker, three Apple Valley tournament champions (plus four Apple Valley top speakers and a round robin champion), five Princeton champions, five Penn champions, and winners of numerous other tournaments. Almost every year that he has been coaching, he has had students qualify to the TOC; in the 2024-2025 season, his students earned a record 28 TOC bids, with six qualifying to the TOC and four clearing at the tournament.
Hertzig teaches IB Theory of Knowledge and IB Psychology at Harrison, and holds an M.A. from Teachers College at Columbia University, a J.D. from Boston College Law School, and a B.A. from Brandeis University (cum laude, with Highest Honors in Sociology). A Triple Diamond coach in the National Speech and Debate Association, he is the recipient of Stanford University’s J.E. Wallace Sterling Award (2016), the Byram Hills Educator Award (2016), and the MinneApple’s Golden Apple Award for Outstanding Achievement in and Dedication to Debate (2019). He has been a summer debate institute instructor for the past 25 years, and is excited to return to direct NSD Philadelphia this summer!