75% of people suffer from glossophobia, the fear of public speaking. Despite extreme nerves and intimidation from other students in dress suits, Cathedral’s Speech and Debate team members combat any fear of public speaking by displaying confidence at tournaments.

Consisting of fifteen students who constantly compete, and between 30 to 35 students who are interested in the team, the Speech and Debate team has competed in five out of nine major tournaments this year. The team welcomed ten new freshmen, one new sophomore, and the returning juniors and seniors. The team captains are seniors Nicole-Ann Lobo and Joe Powers.

Students can participate in a variety of speech and debate events, as there are over fifteen different speech and debate categories. Sometimes, events are impromptu, and competitors giving speeches do not know the prompt until a few minutes before the event. Other times, a student might choose to fully memorize a speech for seven to twelve minutes.

Speech and Debate coach Ms. Amanda Gustafson said, “You need to be very good at thinking on your feet. That is why I kind of call it the art of “B.S.” because you are really trying to convince [judges] with smooth talk and nice words and body language versus actual content.

Cathedral Catholic High School’s team tends to do best in “Congress” and “Lincoln Douglas” debate events. Currently, CCHS is more of a debate team than a speech team; however, Ms. Gustafson is trying to expand the speech section.

“Debate is when you are either one-on-one with an opponent or you are with a team against another team. So you could be debating policy, or debating certain values, criteria, and resolutions. In speech, you could give a speech on why you hate Port-a-Potties or a speech informing people about the Vatican, so speeches have a much broader range than debate,” said Ms. Gustafson.

So far Cathedral’s team is still pretty small. “Most schools bring about fifty to sixty students to a tournament, so that’s my goal as my first year debate coach. We are just starting out by getting people interested for next year, but I really want to bring a huge contingency,” said Ms. Gustafson. “If we just bring three students and all three place in the awards bracket, that’s awesome, but if another school brings fifty and fifty place, then that’s even better.”

However, for a smaller team, Cathedral has had some successful turnouts at the tournaments. For instance, senior Joe Powers placed 12th place out of 120 students in congressional debate, and junior Sue Han got 4th in Novice Lincoln-Douglas debate. Many students personally succeed by overcoming the intimidation of their opponent and of public speaking.   Despite the struggles and some mishaps, students “realize that sometimes falling flat on your face is okay. It’s a learning experience. Sometimes you will fail, but knowing that you’re okay with failure really makes you an upstanding person, and it makes you better at debate in the end,” said Ms. Gustafson.

Speech and Debate team members meet on Mondays and Wednesdays during lunch. “It’s not too big of a commitment, but it looks great on your resume, especially if you want to go into politics, if you want to do something like being a lawyer, if you want to go into communications as your undergrad, or if you want to work with something speech-related. If you place in some of the major tournaments, you could get a full ride scholarship,” said Ms. Gustafson.

The Speech and Debate team still welcomes new members, but the most important quality for prospective members to keep in mind is confidence. Ms. Gustafson said, “Confidence is key. Even if you don’t know what you are talking about, the ability to be confident in your ability to just speak in front of people is vital. You learn that if you mess up, you still know that you are a good speaker and things will get better. I think being on this team will build that confidence.”

Upcoming tournaments include Lincoln-Douglas Debate and Public Forum on January 17^th, 2015, and an Independent Events (IE) tournament (which includes Dramatic Interpretation, Original Prose & Poetry, and more), on January 31^st.