February 29 is the next scheduled meeting for the Speech and Debate team with several members competing in each category.

The events for Speech and Debate will fall into one of two categories, either speech or debate. On the speech side of things, there are two sub-categories that students can participate in: public address events or interpretation events.

Public address events are when the student is given a topic and either has advanced or limited preparation time. The objective of the speeches can be a lot of things, such as persuading an audience, sharing an idea or belief, or educating the listener on a variety of topics. Robert Jackson, the coach of the debate team, puts it as, “your chance to make a call to action, like, to explain how to make the world a better place.”

The other sub-category is interpretation events. These events are judged on the emotions that you are able to evoke from the audience. Events like storytelling, duo-interpretation, humorous interpretation, and dramatic interpretation all fall into this category. Olivia Wang, a senior participating in dramatic interpretation, describes her event as “usually [a] more serious topic, so commentating on things like social issues…it is performed as a monologue.”

After a successful season, a new crew will take their place next month to get a feel for this program. Students new to Speech and Debate learn about the basics of each event and how that event will be judged. You are only eligible for a new season once though, and after that you can only judge.

Colin Magelky, a sophomore in his second year of Speech and Debate, got the opportunity to judge for the current season. On the matter, Magelky stated, “I’m an assistant coach at Preston [Middle School] for their debate team, so I end up judging for middle school a lot… the high school novices are a lot better and it’s a much more enjoyable experience.”

After the season, everyone on the team is allowed to participate in the varsity group. This can be a little unforgiving as Jackson mentions, “That first round in a debate tournament, you could go up against somebody who has been doing it for like four years or somebody who has been doing it for just one year.”

Jackson does not seem all that concerned about this. Because the team is mostly composed of people who have only been doing Speech and Debate for one to two years, this can give him an advantage in upcoming seasons.

For this varsity season, Jackson has seen some absolutely amazing performances from Wang and Thomas Henry. Henry has been highly succeeding in his current event this year, Jackson stating, “Thomas has a very relatable way of presenting himself.”

As for Wang and her performance this year, Jackson stated that “Olivia Wang is, unquestionably, the best drama interp person to ever be at Fossil Ridge High School.” Wang was placing at meets as a freshman and even went to state, which is not impossible, but is rare to see for a ninth-grader.

After COVID-19 hit, Wang only expanded her horizons. Jackson commented on her accomplishments saying, “All of our tournaments were hosted on our virtual computer. She went to the Yale tournament virtually, a Havard tournament virtually, and even a lot of tournaments out in California virtually. Even though the pandemic made us all kind of sit in our room and wonder when this would all be over, she took this as a chance to say, ‘Okay, if we’re all doing this on our computer, I can go out there and compete in more places.’”

As for the debate side of things, Jackson was unable to pick his favorite aspect of it, instead saying, “When you face somebody in a debate, like you’re facing one of the kids who is like the best-of-the-best at their school, it is very intimidating, so anybody who does debate, I think, is just incredible.”