Each week, we’ll step Off the Field to take a closer look at some of the Republic students who are competing in non-sports activities. Our weekly report is brought to you by State Farm Agent Sarah Rader. Talk to her about how you can save money by combining your home and auto insurance.
This is a big weekend coming up for the Republic speech and debate squad, and they’re not even competing. About 20 schools will be in Republic for the 2017 Novice Tournament, hosted by Republic on October 20-21. Competition starts at 3:00 Friday, lasts all evening, and picks up again at 8:00 Saturday morning.
“Hosting a tournament at Republic is a big deal. We’re still a smaller community in the Speech and Debate world. We compete against some of the top schools in the nation, so to have our name out there as a school that can pull of a tournament brings a lot of respect from area programs,” says coach Sarah Petroff. “It shows the community that Republic is on the map and willing to host this huge event.”
Hosting a tournament is a “rite of passage” for students, and that means a lot of pressure for them to get things right in a big logistical undertaking.
“You can tell how invested they get by how high the emotions are. Running a tournament is insanely stressful,” Petroff says. “There is a lot that I put on the students to make sure it’s successful.
“We had a really bad tournament my first year, and the team hung their heads about it for a while. Last year, we came back with a mission to host an amazing tournament and we did! Community members and coaches were complimentary of being able to run a tournament on time. The kids took ownership of this and had some bragging rights for a while.”
There’s still time to participate as a judge at the event, which relies on community involvement to happen successfully.
“The great thing about judging is that anyone (out of high school) can do it. All judges have to do is listen to students perform or debate, write some feedback on a ballot, and choose a winner, or rank students in order of best performance,” Petroff says. “We love having new judges so that we can share the excitement that is speech and debate. It’s amazing to see how talented these young people are.”