Meet the Coaches

Aaron Timmons, Jr. is the Director of Debate at Greenhill School. A veteran educator, and Greenhill Faculty Leader, Timmons has been inducted into the Hall of Fame of the National Speech & Debate Association, The Tournament of Champions, and the Texas Forensic Association. In 2000, he was listed as one of the top coaches of the 20th century by the National Speech & Debate Association. Timmons has published several educational publications and is a frequent presenter of workshops on debate pedagogy both domestically and internationally. In 2013, Timmons was chosen as a Coach of the National Speech & Debate Association's version of the Olympic team for high school debate, the USA Debate Team. In the summer of 2023, Timmons was the Co-Head Coach of the USA Team that won the World Championship in Hanoi, Vietnam. A former National Debate Coaches Association Educator of the Year, Timmons is one of only three coaches in the history of the National Speech & Debate Association to win National Championships in policy debate and Lincoln Douglas Debate. He is the only coach to have multiple champions in both divisions, and in 2020, coached an NSDA World Schools Champion, and Poetry Interpretation Champion as well. direction, Greenhill students have also won National titles at the National Debate Coaches Association Championships, the Tournament of Champions, and the National Individual Events Tournament of Champions. No other school in the State of Texas has more Texas Forensic Association State Debate Champions than Greenhill School! 

While the Greenhill Debate Team has a history of success, Timmons believes that the activity of Speech & Debate serves as a vehicle for aiding young people to better tell their stories and preparing them to better themselves, and their communities. Timmons has served in a variety of leadership positions including stints on the Board of the National Debate Coaches Association and the Texas Forensic Association.

Rodrigo Paramo has been coaching high school debate for over a decade and joined the Greenhill coaching staff as a full-time classroom teacher in 2022. In his time as a coach, Rodrigo has coached multiple state champions in Lincoln-Douglas debate, and his students have consistently championed or competed in late elimination rounds at major high school debate tournaments. In his first year working with the Greenhill debate team, one of his students won the Dukes & Bailey Cup for Season-Long Excellence, awarded to the highest-performing high school debater over the course of a debate season. Rodrigo believes deeply in the power of debate to challenge the way students think about the world, inculcate critical thinking skills that extend far past any individual debate round, and to build life-long friendships.