The speech and debate team at NHS doesn’t get as much attention as many other competition oriented clubs and teams in school. Despite that, competition days on the speech team are just as exciting and filled with anticipation as on any other.

Gabby Rose, a freshman on the speech and debate team, gives insight to what debate competitions are all about: the journey to compete, the nerves, and the competition itself.

As the day begins, Rose said, “On a normal competition day, we wake up super early because we have to get to the school, so we can drive.”

Competitions happen fairly often, so Rose says it takes some serious dedication to get up so early, so often. Luckily, the venue provides food—although competitors still have to pay for it—Rose doesn’t mind though. She sees it as an opportunity to further support the places that allow speech competitions to be held.

Further into the day, once students start to compete, tensions become high. Not because of nerves, but because of anticipation and excitement.

“[I get] kind of nervous, but once I get into the groove of things, I feel a little bit [more] relaxed,” Rose said. 

Even though it’s a competition, a sense of nervousness doesn’t play as big a role as it typically would. There could be a myriad of reasons for this, but as Rose said, for her, it’s more fun than nerve wracking because no one takes it too seriously.

Of course, the competition is important to everyone competing, but it’s definitely not the end of the world if someone makes one mistake. In fact, Rose says that the most difficult part of speech isn’t the competing, it’s slowing down. 

“I have to just take really big deep breaths and just slow down my words so I’m not talking too fast or anything, because you can get deducted for that. I go with the flow and I just pretend I’m giving my speech to my friends,” Rose said.

While nervousness may not be at the forefront of Rose’s mind, she says that as a naturally fast talker, it takes legitimate effort and practice to make sure she enunciates clearly.

Speech has become something integral to Rose’s life, inside and outside of school through the past year. Not only from a sense of accomplishment, but because it’s helped her to overcome one of her biggest fears: public speaking.

“I used to be so afraid of public speaking. [But] now I’m just so much better with it.That was a big accomplishment for me.”