Promising Forensics Freshmen Learn from Champion Teammates

Promising Forensics Freshmen Learn from Champion Teammates

BY DAVID KAPLAN
Rice News Staff
Dec. 10, 1998

The George R. Brown Forensics Society is ranked third nationally, and last year its debaters placed first at nationals. The team has been consistently ranked high nationally for much of the decade.

So if you’re a freshman, with no prior experience in forensics, joining the Rice team could be somewhat daunting.

Freshman Mrudula Penta, who had no background in forensics, joined the squad at the beginning of the semester and is already traveling to out-of-town tournaments, where she competes in parliamentary debate and extemporaneous speaking events.

At first, Penta, a Lovett College resident, was “really nervous and unsure about being on a really talented team populated with national champions. But I soon found there was no reason to be intimidated.”

The Forensics Society had no trouble drawing new people this year. Fifteen out of its 30 members are freshmen.

Dan West, the Forensics Society head coach and a lecturer in public speaking in the School of Humanities, believes his team’s strong showing in recent years is making it easier to attract new members.

“This is the first year I’ve seen students coming to Rice with competing in mind,” West says. “There are more students who come here because they knew we have a good speech and debate team and want to be part of it.”

Along with benefiting from its reputation, West believes the team is doing a better job of recruiting and publicizing through its Web site. West only recruits from the field of students who have already been accepted to Rice.

The coach says he expects another strong year, thanks in part to the promising crop of freshmen. Last month, the Rice squad placed first in team sweepstakes for the third year in a row at the Texas Intercollegiate Forensics Association Championship Tournament in Corpus Christi.

Rice’s forensics team excels despite disadvantages. The school has no communications department, which is significant because speech and debate are viewed as a showcase for communications schools. Rice also has far fewer coaches than most colleges. This year, for the first time, West hired two part-time coaches. Some schools have has many as 18 coaches.

Rice has a strong peer coaching system, says West, who notes that his freshmen are learning from some of the best speakers and debaters in the nation.

Describing his upperclass teammates as “a beacon of forensics ability, which I someday hope to reach,” freshman Dennis Lu says that they make themselves available to hear practice speeches and debates and often serve as coaches.

West says he tries to instill in his team an attitude “not to jump through hoops but to seek excellence and put everything into it.

“Speech and debate are skills you can use but you can’t turn pro,” West says. “Their job is to graduate from college. That’s why I push them hard academically.” Last spring the team had an impressive collective grade point average of 3.64.

West believes his team succeeds competitively because they know how to research, write and balance their time and are a high caliber of student.

Lu, a parliamentary debater and extemporaneous speaker, was active in forensics in high school. The Brown College resident finds that speech and debate have kept him on top of current events and taught him poise and to speak fast and clearly and “defend or attack a certain position regardless of one’s personal opinions.”

Hanszen College freshman Brook Ames had no speech training in high school and found his first tournament to be “a little overwhelming. Luckily, there were other freshmen in my event [dramatic interpretation], so having them there helped,” Ames says. “It was also a nice ego boost to make it to the final round–even if I did place sev-en out of seven because I went over time.”

Ames and his freshmen teammates still have plenty of time to learn the ropes. The forensics season, which began the first weekend of September, won’t end until the last weekend of April.