With about 50 members, the Green River High School Speech and Debate team is preparing for its first tournament in Casper.
“We remain one of the larger teams in Wyoming, but we have significantly decreased in size the last couple years,” assistant coach Dan Parson said. “We still have great kids on the team and strength in every event.”
The team is pretty well balanced in the amount of seniors, juniors, sophomores and freshmen it has, which he sees as a benefit to the team.
“It takes a couple years of participation and competition to get good at speech and debate,” Parson said.
“Having students with experience to guide those who are new is a real benefit. With only three coaches and 50 kids, who are doing two or three events each, we have to rely on peer coaching at least part of the time to prepare.”
For the past three weeks, the team has been practicing.
“Kids are finding pieces to perform, getting cases written and starting to polish skills,” Parson said. “It’s always a little chaotic in the beginning, but we are starting to settle in.”
One of the first meets in the state took place recently in Rock Springs, but the GR team didn’t attend.
“Due to budget issues we had to cut a couple tournaments from our calendar,” Parson said.
We love the Rock Springs tournament, they run a great event, but it is really early in the season and there was no way we would be prepared,” he said.
Instead of tying to compete in a tournament they wouldn’t be ready for, the team opted to set its sights on one taking place later.
As for setting goals, it’s a little too early in the season for that, but it’s something to think about. Parson hopes the overall experience is something the members will enjoy.
“Our hope is that students look back on this season and can say they worked hard, felt valued, that they grew as people, and that their experience was rewarding,” Parson said.
The team is excited for what this season had to offer and are ready to represent Green River from November through mid March.
Reader Comments(0)