It’s the beginning of the next school year, and you want to do an activity instead of being home. You’re scrolling on Instagram and see many of your friends in formal clothing at a school you may not recognize. You begin to sit and contemplate. What activity is this? Should I join this team activity? Would Speech & Debate be worthwhile?

The National Speech & Debate Association (NSDA) is an organization that encourages young students and adults to go into depth with their research, discuss with others about their topics, and present their ideas to a judge. Participants of Speech & Debate also go against other participants from different schools to build confidence and experience from their peers. Schools all over Iowa have their own teams, including East. There are many reasons why people join debate, but building skills for college is a big one.

“My big push was that you have to take Speech in college, and it’s way easier if you’re used to getting up and talking. You practice doing a thing that nobody is good at the first time they do it,” coach Sam Juhl said.

The thing that most people like about Speech & Debate is that there are many different events in both Speech and Debate.
“I like the different variety in the events. I really like Informative Speech because it gives me a chance to speak my mind on stuff,” sophomore Kaelyn Harnden said.

In the Speech portion of Speech & Debate, the events are divided by three portions: Prepared Speech, Extemporaneous, and Interpretation. Most of the members in the East Speech & Debate Team do the Prepared Speech portion, which consists of Original Oratory (OO), and Informative Speech (INFO). In the Debate portion, there is Policy, Lincoln Douglas (LD), Public Forum (PF), and Congressional/Congress (CON).

“Most people do Prepared Speech at East because it gives you more time to prepare your speech,” Harnden said.

With the number of events that were provided, they all have different levels of challenges and difficulties, which might seem a bit complex for a newcomer. In most cases, newcomers end up resulting in doing either Spontaneous or Prepared Speech events for the Speech side, and Public Forum or Congress for Debate to ease into the activity.

“I think some of the easier to enter events are to do the Public Address events, where you can kind of plan your speech out ahead of time. If you don’t want to do that, Spontaneous, where you don’t have to put in any work until you show up to the tournament. On the Debate side, I think doing Public Forum or Congressional Debate are the easier starters,” Juhl said.

Another thing that most people like about Speech & Debate is that it helps them build their presenting and communication skills in front of an audience, and it helps them build their confidence.

“Yes, I do currently like Debate and Speech. I feel like it’s personally a way I’m able to grow a bit in my communication, also my argumentative skills, and I think that it’s very beneficial,” junior Natalie Park said.

If an experienced participant consistently wins or places high at every tournament, they might have a chance to place high at National Qualifications, which could possibly allow them to travel to another place to go to Nationals. In Speech & Debate, students who make it to nationals are highly ranked among their peers and have ranked very high amongst their peers to compete against people from different states. Qualifying for Nationals allows that participant to get scholarships from Simpson College, and it gives them the general experience of being at Nationals. Last year, Des Moines hosted nationals, but students usually travel.

“It gives you the opportunity to say that you are a National Qualifier on your resume, usually Simpson would award scholarship money to students that qualify to nationals. You will have the ability to participate in Speech & Debate in college, and you get a good life experience,” Juhl said.

The NSDA has been around for 101 years, serving participants since 1925. Participants of the NSDA have many members who have created a legacy of Speech & Debate in their family generation after generation, which has piqued the interests of many others.
“My older brother was the first to join Speech & Debate, and after he graduated, he made it look really cool to me, so I decided to give it a shot,” Harnden said.

On the East Speech & Debate Team, there is only one main coach, Sam Juhl, and a policy coach, Henry Wright. Juhl has spent a lot of time at tournaments helping the team out with their preparation work and working/running the website, Tabroom. Whether it’s the car ride on the way to/from a tournament, at practice, or even outside the classroom in the hall, he still finds multiple ways to keep in touch with his team and he tries to bond with everyone. Out of all the struggles he endures, his team appreciates having him as the coach of the East Speech & Debate Team.