For many people, public speaking in 12-hour-long tournaments would be ac omplete nightmare. But for the Oak Park and River Forest High School Speech Team, it is just another Saturday.
OPRF’s Speech Team is a dedicated group of students who prepare for and compete in a variety of public speaking events ranging from impromptu speaking to dramatic interpretation. Two members of the team, OPRF juniors Alejandro Medina and Sonja Emerson, advanced to the state level after a competitive sectional tournament on Feb. 10.
The team, coached by Pat Cheney and Matt Johnston, puts in hours of practice and private coaching sessions each week to prepare their speeches and acts. On top of that, Saturday tournaments typically take 12 to 14 hours.
“If they want to be considered for the regional team, they need to have attended five of the 10 invitational tournaments, and then they need to be available to attend all three of the state series tournaments. At regionals we can send one person in each event and the coaches collectively make that decision,” said Cheney.
Cheney, who has vast experience in coaching, speaking and drama, has been working with the OPRF Speech Team for 35 years. Though retired from her position in the OPRF special education department, she still does makeup and hair for the theater department as well as Cosmetology Club. “I competed on the speech team while I was in high school, and a year after graduating college was asked to come back and work with theater. Then, the head coaches of speech asked me if I would assist some and judge some. I really enjoyed it and stayed because Speech Team is an amazing activity plus OPRF has wonderful, talented students,” said Cheney.
Johnston is a newer addition to the team. As a 1998 OPRF graduate, he was on the team while it was coached by Cheney, and came back in 2005 to begin coaching. “When I received the opportunity to become co-head coach, I initially did not want the responsibility. But the team needed it. And I’ve always been a team player and I felt that I could help advance the team and build a coaching staff that would be competitive, as well as compassionate about kids no matter what level they come in at,” said Johnston.
While Cheney and Johnston are certainly competitive, to them, the SpeechTeam is more about individual growth.
“Our overarching goal with the program is that the kids improve. It doesn’t matter what award they take. It matters that when they walk onto the speech team and when they leave at graduation, that they are comfortable giving a speech in public, they feel more comfortable talking in front of people and that they’ve learned something to make them advance as a human being. That’s more important than taking first place or an award or anything else,” Johnston said.
Even so, OPRF’s speech team has accrued a lot of success this season. 18 students competing in a total of 15 different events went to regionals on Feb. 3. There, nine students placed fourth or higher in their events and advanced to sectionals on Feb. 10. In a competitive sectional, both Emerson and Medina placed first in their respective events, Original Comedy and Poetry Reading, thereby advancing to the IHSA state competition. While they didn’t place at state, they found the experience valuable.
“I chose original comedy because I get the creative freedom to write my own speech and make it unique to my own personal style of comedy,” Emerson said. “It’s definitely stressful because you have to be really high energy and you’re putting yourself in a really vulnerable position, but it’s a lot of fun.”
Emerson, who has a remarkable talent for mimicking accents, takes on many different characters in her self-written comedy act entitled, “Murder at Crumpetshire Meadows.” According to Emerson, the main premise is a “British old lady like serial killer. But, she’s also like a witch. And for hundreds of years, she’s been framing men for her murders. But there’s also a Russian guy and a Scottish guy and a country guy. She just kills all of them basically.”
Medina, on the other hand, started by finding published poems to put together for his speech. “Unlike other acting events where you’re more restricted in the emotions you can convey, poetry reading is pretty creative because poetry is just universal,” said Medina. Medina worked with four poems, “Monster” by Rudy Francisco, “People You May Know” by Kevin Kantor, “In Response” by Akeemjamal Rolins and “X Marks the Spot” by Oliver Brantome, to create his speech. “I wanted to make them into one cohesive piece of performance,” said Medina.
As Emerson and Medina both do acting events, they have been working for roughly four months on perfecting their individual performances. Each one has to be timed almost perfectly to eight minutes, with no stopwatch or timepiece provided. At most tournaments, they compete against 20 to 40 other students in each event. “And by finals, the room will be full of about 70 people that come to watch. It’s a lot of pressure,” said Emerson.
However, Emerson and Medina both appreciate the robust team community in times of stress. “We watch each other’s rounds, and if we can’t make it to watch, we all make sure to give any type of support we can,” said Medina.
“I’m proud of the team as an entire group of coaches and students because they’ve really worked together to support one another through their highs and their lows. They have grown and had a wonderful season,” added Cheney.
