Rubbing Elbows with National Champions

For the first time in over twenty years, I had the honor of speaking at the National Forensic League Championships.

This time, instead of attempting to win high marks from panel after panel of distinguished judges, I conducted two Coach Clinics to highlight the ways the Common Core standards openly support and enhance speech and debate instruction. Just to rub elbows with the many educators that dedicate hours, weekends, and decades to nurture the expressive talents of young orators, analysts, and storytellers inspires me to no end.

It’s been a while since I’ve paid tribute to the National Forensic League’s Championships here on the blog-with-the-rotating-title. I’ve chronicled the top high schools in speech and debate’s showcase event previously (you can see 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011 here). For those new to the show, I enjoy profiling the top ten teams from each year’s National Tournament because the NFL was essentially ordered not to have such rankings by the National Association of Secondary School Principals nearly twenty years ago. You can see my full diatribe against this move if you like; suffice it to say, I still fail to understand what reasoning allows chess and cheer teams the right to declare one school as the best in the country while the educators who build their students’ talent for self-expression are denied the same opportunity. 

SIDEBAR: Shout out to Edward R. Murrow High School in Brooklyn and Dyer County High School of Newbern, Tennessee for winning national titles in chess and cheer, respectively.

I’m happy to see that, for 2013, the NFL will highlight the ten most successful schools with a new Schools of Outstanding Distinction award. In fact, the League has broadened their recognition efforts, and it appears some fifty programs will be officially celebrated for their collective performance at Nationals. This is a wonderful move by the league, and an important way to recognize team accomplishments in an activity that so often feels so individualistic. I’ll continue to showcase, from my little corner of the Web, the top ten schools from previous years, including last year’s event in an upcoming post. To whet the appetite, I’ll build up the archives with a flashback to the 2006 tournament:

10^th place-tie: Lincoln High School – Sioux Falls, South Dakota. We’ve seen this school’s recent resurgence as a top-five national finisher two years running, but this program has featured prominently for some time. Winners of the 1981 NFL Championship, the squad that took the Dallas Nationals by storm in ’06 was helmed by coach Bryan Hagg and highlighted by great performances by interpretation speaker Hannah Sorenson (4^th place –  Dramatic Interpretation), and the semi-finalist Duo teams of Alex Hartman & Andy Schnabel and Ali Horsted & Chris Garcia.

10^th place-tie: Leland High School – San Jose, California. The Chargers from Silicon Valley returned to the top ranks at Nationals for the first time since claiming the 2002 title. Six of Gay Brasher’s students advanced to elimination rounds in four different events, led by Student Congress finalist Gautam Thapar (4^th place – Senate) and extemporaneous speaker Akshay Rao (11^th place – International).

9^th: Parkview High School – Springfield, Missouri. Just a mile and a half from Missouri State University, coach Nancy Wedgeworth assembled a resilient squad of eleven students for the NFL tournament, including three debate teams that all reached elimination rounds.  The Public Forum team of Stephanie Hurst & Anh Vy Mai reached the farthest, compiling a 5-3-1 record. (Ties are permitted in preliminary debate rounds.)

8^th: Southwest High School – Lincoln, Nebraska. One of the newest schools in Nebraska’s capitol, Southwest reached the NFL’s top ten in just its fourth year of existence! Coach Toni Heimes took eight students to the Dallas Nationals, and they amassed over seventy rounds in the main events. The Public Forum team of Nick Dalke & Matthew Rosson paced the Silver Hawks, losing just twice in twelve rounds to rank among the top eleven teams in the tournament.

7^th: Holy Ghost Preparatory – Bensalem, Pennsylvania. Tucked away in the southeastern corner of Pennsylvania is this Catholic boys school with a long tradition of NFL success. Under coaches John Buettler (an alumnus of the school) & Tony Figliola, Holy Ghost placed five students among the top ten in Oratory (Anthony Francomacaro, 6^th place) and  Duo Interpretation: (Bronne Bruzgo & Ryan Martin , 2^nd place; Eric Leist & Kevin Frawley,   8^th place).

6^th: Bellarmine College Preparatory – San Jose, California. On the other coast is another Christian boys school that has not only occupied the NFL’s top ten for decades, but the Bells broke historic ground in Dallas. Matthew Grimes & Dylan Groves became the first Policy debate champions from California in over three decades, while speakers Brian Stephan (7^th place, National Extemporaneous) and Ananth Srinivasan (9^th place, Oratory) also cracked the top ten for head coach Kim Jones’ squad.

5^th: Nova High School – Davie, Florida. The Titans are based about ten miles south of Fort Lauderdale, but their regular trips to Nationals are almost always fruitful. Coach Lisa Miller continued to expand the school’s repertoire in 2006, racking up elimination rounds in speech events and Public Forum debate. Nova’s richest tradition, however, rests in Student Congress, as Craig Richards and Evan Medina both demonstrated by reaching the Finals in the House division.

4^th: Apple Valley High School – Apple Valley, Minnesota. For the first time since placing third in 2002, Joseph and Pam Cady Wycoff bring the Eagles back into the nation’s top ten with an impressive haul of ten awards from a squad of eleven students. Alongside oratory champion Sarah Koch and expository runner-up Ronni Toledo, Congressional debater Brittany Stanchik (House division) and dramatic interpreter Jenny Gladstone (6^th place) also reached the final rounds at Nationals.

3^rd: Glenbrook-South – Illinois Here again, we see a squad of just ten students all contributing to the Titans’ fifth top-ten finish since the turn of the century.  Under the direction of Scott McDermott, nearly every student amassed ten rounds or more in Dallas, led by the Policy team of Abe Corrigan & Mima Lazarevic (11 rounds) and semi-finalist speakers Laura Manning (14^th place, dramatic), Robert L. Whittley (12^th place, dramatic), and orator Eddie Itkin, (8^th place).

2^nd: Eagan High School – Eagan, Minnesota. Another perennial staple in the NFL’s top ten since Y2K, the 2003 champions continue to maintain their elite status under head coach Joni Anker. Incredibly, they were one of just two schools to earn over 100 rounds this year, and they did so with just one finalist: Alex Stephenson, who placed 2^nd in United States extemporaneous. Semifinalists such as Duo team Abhrajeet Roy & Caroline Innerbichler (7^th place) and orator Larisa Agovic (10^th place) were just a few of the Wildcats that showcased the depth of talent that places Eagan among the elite schools in competitive forensics.

2006 National Champion: James Logan High School – Union City, California. In addition to defending its national title, Tommie Lindsey’s team also won the Phi Beta Kappa Bruno E. Jacob Award, given to schools that amass the most number of rounds at the National Championship tournament since the school’s establishment in the league. (A school’s total resets to zero rounds once they win the award; only fourteen schools have won the award multiple times since it was first given in 1936.)  Once the 2006 tournament ended, The Colts had accumulated 1375 rounds over its history, including 150 this year in Dallas. Jeff Bogess & Nathaniel Nguyen claimed the national title in Duo interpretation while  Seema Rupani (humorous, 8^th), Shefali Tandon (international extemporaneous, 8^th)  and Kamara Wilson (dramatic, 9^th) also earned top-ten awards. They led an astonishing sixteen students who advanced to the elimination rounds.