Twelve students, clad in their finest dress, emerging from a white van, walk into the halls of Bloomsburg University, Bloomsburg, Pa.
With the poise and confidence of champions, the Ohio University Forensics - better known as speech and debate - Team, eyes forward, strolls past their competition and retreats to a secluded classroom for rehearsal, said Dan West, team director.
During the academic year, the team travels to 12 regular-season, weekend-long competitions, a district and state tournament and two national championship tournaments. The team took first place in the overall sweepstakes in its last competition on Oct. 21 and Oct. 22 at Ball State University, in Muncie, Ind., and the team, preparing for the competition on Nov. 3 in Bloomsburg, was looking to continue its success.
While some students got ready for battle on the debate stage, junior Dan DiLoreto said he prepared to persuade judges to take action against modern-day slavery in the United States.
Before DiLoreto performed, he practiced every day for weeks until every hand gesture, head movement and enunciation was perfect. After delivering his speech, sweating under the lights of the stage and before the judges, Diloreto said he took his seat in the audience and prayed the other competitors would make mistakes.
It's like a beauty pageant
Diloreto said. Everyone is really nice to you but really they're wishing you would fall on your face.
Persuasion is one of nine individual events in which the team participates. Others include original poetry to impromptu speaking among others, and all players are trying to make it to the final round to qualify for the National Forensics Association Individual Events Tournament in April 2006 at the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire.
DiLoreto qualified at Ball State and said he rehearses almost every night in his bedroom and with the team for three hours on Tuesday night. He also meets with director West at least once a week for an intense training and development session, he said.
If I could spend one hour a day practicing piano when I was nine these kids can spend one hour a day (practicing)
West said.
Taking the front of a room inside the Central Classroom Building on Nov. 1, on West Union Street, DiLoreto rehearsed the latest version of his speech as West, scribbling notes on a legal pad, shook his head and rolled his eyes as DiLoreto faltered in his speech. DiLoreto cracked a smile after one mistake that he had worked on with West the week before. They know exactly what my reaction means
West said, adding that students study his face while on stage.
West is the John A. Cassese director of forensics, an endowed professorship in the College of Communication. He is able to focus his efforts on the program because his position is not a tenure track, and he does not have to publish, he said.
The goal this year is to have every student qualify in at least one event for the national tournament, he said. To qualify, a student needs to make it to the final round once during the regular season. In 17 events, 13 students already have qualified.
I have to find kids who want to win nationals
he said.
To attract OU students to the program, three hours of class credits are offered, as well as a number of scholarships, including one from Nancy Cartwright, the voice of TV's Bart Simpson, offered to Forensic team freshman from her alma mater, Kettering/Fairmont High School.
Freshman Tymon Wallace, a player on the team, said he had been influenced by actor Sydney Poitier, poet Maya Angelou and Oprah Winfrey.
The fact that these African American people have this voice
speak with diction
enunciate their words
it's just so inspiring to me
and so I was like
'You know what? I want to do forensics
