Speech team heads to nationals

With a season full of victories behind it, the University's speech team heads toward its final quest -- the National Forensics Association's national tournament at Western Illinois University -- this weekend. The team placed fourth at its last competition -- the American Forensics Association's National Individual Events Tournament, known as the AFA-NIET. President Paul Higday, an Engineering senior, said the most recent finish dramatically illustrates the team's steady improvement since his freshman year. "Fourth is the highest placing for Penn in nationals in history," Higday said. "It's also the highest placing of a team with an entry so small." The Penn team only entered four competitors in the tournament. Higday said most other schools were able to send many more. Although the team has 35 members, only four were able to attend the AFA-NIET because of the expenses involved in entering team members, College senior Todd Anten said. According to Higday, the University boasted 19 entries, with 10 advancing to the "outrounds," which are comprised of the 24 best entrants in each category of approximately 150 students. Anten, a member of the speech team, noted that Higday, as the runner up in the Individual Sweepstakes category, was the second highest-scoring student in the tournament. Higday won the Communication Analysis category with his speech on the communications aspects of Rwandan genocide. Anten added that Higday and the other three students in attendance, including Speech Team Vice President Jocelyn So and Secretary Laura Paladino, placed highly in many events. "Our strength lies in the limited preparation events and the public addresses,"Anten said. Coach Carol Thomas said that while she is pleased with the showing at the AFA-NIET, she is looking ahead to this weekend's tournament with excitement. Thomas cited the University's "endless" resources and the students' self-direction and diligent work as the factors that especially work to the team's advantage. "This is by far the strongest team effort the University has put forth," Thomas said. She added that as the team's coach, she works with the students to develop dynamic topics and perfect deliverance. Higday explained that the NFA tournament will allow the speech team to compete against such forensics powerhouses as Bradley University in Illinois and the University of Texas at Austin. He added that Penn will send 15 students to Illinois for the culmination of its year-long season. Higday noted that speech teams from large state universities tend to do well because of strong financial backing and other support from their schools. In addition, those teams are among the oldest in the nation and have had the chance to build a long-standing reputation of excellence. But Penn's team is only five years old and has not yet developed a tradition behind its new-found success. "This one is our real push," Anten said. "For us it's analogous to the World Series." Paladino, a College junior, said the team is looking forward to "giving a great showing." "We've worked harder than ever," she said. "We're all very excited and that excitement can only mean success."