This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Health & Fitness

Solon Debate Team Blog: First Day of Competition

The first day of competition is always the craziest...with the tension and anxiety of everyone high, we all put on our best clothes to do what we came to do: speak.

    The very first day of the National Forensic League Tournament had begun.  After sleeping well in our Aloft beds, we were forced to arise early in the morning- around 6 just so we could make the walk to the convention center where we would be competing for the next few days.  Preparation for competition included showering and dressing up in our spiffy suits.  There wasn't very much time for breakfast, but several of us managed to nab a bite of an overpriced hotel muffin.

    The walk to the convention center took around 20 minutes.   The view of the sunrise was quite stunning, and managed to distract us enough from the unexpectedly hot morning temperature.  Speech and Debate tournaments are always extremely confusing and hectic.  This was no different.  Finding maps and coordinating meet up places was always the initial goal of the team.  Finding your way around the competition scene was surprisingly simple for most of us as there were numerous guides around to help out with lost competitors.  One of our biggest worries was that the rooms in which we would be competing in would be too small.  The convention center doubled as a hotel, which made finding your way to various floors difficult and cumbersome.  After saying goodbye to each other, we all headed off to our various rooms for competition. 

    In short order, we were in our rooms and we started talking.  In Speech individual events, each round generally has six or seven people in each round, each person with a speech of around 10 minutes.  Thus, each round we compete in takes approximately an hour.  Today, we had 4 rounds of competition- not all at the same time.  In order to coordinate the limited number of volunteer judges, rounds are "flighted", which means that rounds are at different times spread throughout the day for different events.  For example, Duo interpretation had rounds at 8, 10, 2 and 4 whereas Dramatic interpretation had rounds at 10, 12, 4 and 6.  Because of the staggered round set up, we had to wait in order to keep the team together for the walk back home.  

Find out what's happening in Solonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

  After long hours of competition, the Solon Speech and Debate team crashed at the Aloft Dallas with several of us heading directly to the pool to cool off.  The rest of us decided to go explore the city with our coaches.  We all ended up eating at a "busy" Italian restaurant (busy in quotations because there were numerous free tables inside of the restaurant).  The end of the day involved a few of us practicing a little again for the next day, when the best 60 of each event would be recognized.  No one from Solon has ever yet made it into the top 60, so the anticipation for all of us is high.  With the first day of competition over, we eagerly await the second day with the last guaranteed rounds for many competitors...

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?

More from Solon