(Adam Lyons '15 with first place trophy for Interpretation)
Xavier Speech and Debate Begins Season with Promising Start and High Hopes
At any given moment, walk through the halls of Xavier – you’ll find students excelling in all different pursuits. Today, we’ll look at one of these groups, the Speech and Debate team, which began its season last weekend and has proven to be quite the competitive force since reentering competition several years ago.
The Speech and Debate team consists of 30 students from all years who compete in Congressional Debate, Extemporaneous Speech, or Interpretation. Team members are measured by unpartisan judges who grade their ability to reason and refute, the ways in which they command and affect an audience’s attention, and critically analyze and organize their thoughts on any given subject, among other qualities.
The team is coached by Mr. Edward Walsh, and his assistant coaches are Bill Gallagher ’95, Don Hooper ’97, and Jeremy Norris ’98, Xavier alumni who participated in speech and debate at Xavier.
Speech and Debate began its season this past weekend with a competition at Regis High School. The team came in 7th place out of 17 teams throughout New York City, a promising start for the new season. In individual competition, Adam Lyons ’15 took 1st place in interpretive prose reading, which marks the first time a Xavier student has taken first place in an interpretive category since the 1990s.
Though the team is young, team members are still experienced. Mr. Walsh noted with excitement that this will be the first year since the team reentered competition that it will have members who began as freshmen and have stayed on through their senior year.
Liam Coles ’15 first joined the speech and debate team as a freshman, and as a senior, he has been able to notice how the team has changed and grown since then. “We’ve become a much more mature and fully fledged team,” Liam said. “My freshman year was the first real year we existed as a team. At the time, we only did Congressional Debate, but we’ve expanded greatly since then.”
Both Liam and Mr. Walsh expect great success for the team this year. Mr. Walsh said, “We want as many students as we can to qualify for the New York State Forensic League Championship, which for any team is the ultimate goal of the year.” Eleven Sons of Xavier qualified for States last year. Judging by their continued growth, success and experience, students and coaches are hopeful that they will surpass this number and be in for another competitive season.
Best of luck to team members as they continue on their season!