All of the fourteen competitive events our team offers will challenge you, stretch you, and inspire you to build upon your present knowledge, skills, and abilities to grow you into the kind of thinker and person you dream to become.  Debate topics are based upon current controversies, teaching you to explore all sides of every issue. Interpretation events grant you the deepest knowledge of beloved classics and contemporary, cutting-edge masterpieces.  Speech events afford you the space and time to develop your own voice, to express the unique ways you view yourself and your world.   No matter the event, you will amaze yourself and others as you learn, grow, and achieve mastery of your craft.  

Just as athletic skills are honed both in practice and in games (featuring an opposing team, officials, and fans on both sides), communication skills are honed both in practice and in performance at speech and debate tournaments in front of an audience made up of a several competitors and trained judges.  We learn how to speak politely, powerfully, and persuasively not in isolation but in community, finding out how others respond to our thoughts, words, and delivery.  We learn from the experience of doing and the experience of observing--how do we react to others and how do they react to us?  What is the best way of expressing our ideas for maximum impact?  We discover that revising is not a chore but is instead an opportunity to make our "best" work even better, and the end result is a deep sense of accomplishment and mastery, a gift to others and to ourselves.  

Perhaps the greatest benefit of joining the team is becoming part of the speech and debate family, which is a community of people dedicated to elevating their voices at the same time they foster deep and lasting friendships.  Practice begins that process, as the goal is to make everyone better, not just ourselves.  Students work closely with each other and with the coaches to develop and perfect content and delivery, furthering  cooperation and instilling confidence as you learn to rely both on each other and on yourself.  

But the positive atmosphere is not just at school but at the tournaments themselves, where it's common at the end of debates for competitors to thank the adults for judging and to shake each others' hands and say, "Good round," as they walk down the hall giving each other tips and exchanging pleasant banter.  Speech competitors have made it a tradition to clap before and after each others' performances and actively promote friendships across schools.  The student lounge is known as a place of comfort and comradery, where students get to know their own teammates better and have a chance to mingle with students from other teams.  No wonder the awards ceremony is a time when everyone's accomplishments are acknowledged, regardless of school affiliation.  

As for our own team, there is plenty of time traveling back and forth to competitions and between rounds to have fun getting to know one another.  We also celebrate our accomplishments midway through the season at a holiday party and then at the end of the season at a formal banquet, where we look back at the past season, thank our volunteers, and honor our graduating seniors.  Alumni of our team have found some of their dearest friends in speech and debate, which is why our team feels a lot like family.  

Ultimately, speech and debate brings joy, as it is an incredible feeling to excel at the craft of communication.  It is gratifying to be heard and to be understood and to be valued.  And it is equally vital to find safe spaces in which to face setbacks, obstacles, and challenges from which to grow, even (and perhaps especially) when that process involves loss and losing.  There is no one in the speech and debate community, even at the national level, who has never lost a round.  Losses happen for a variety of reasons--you were just tired this round, or a judge fails to understand a critical point you were trying to make, or the round is so close it could legitimately go either way, or you happen to face the toughest competitor in your event, etc.  Regardless of the reason, the loss occurred.   But you discover later that you also ranked high in another around, and you remember that in the previous tournament you placed in the top six.  Wins and losses come and go.  You learn to win and lose gracefully.  Winning will still be more fun than losing, of course, and losses can still sting a little.  But you learn that there's so much more to the activity than winning or losing, just like in life--it's the joy of what you've learned about your topic, about yourself, about others; it's the friendships you've developed along the way; it's the quality time you've spent doing something that matters, preparing you for even greater work ahead.  For joy and intellectual humility are flipsides of one another, revealing that what matters most is what we gain even when we appear to lose--what we carry with us into the future from what we've accomplished when we're at the very best we could give in the now!