Bethany’s speech and debate team this year is the largest it has ever been, with a total of twenty-two students and three coaches.
Not all of the new additions to the team are freshman, though. For several sophomores and juniors, this is their first speech and debate season as well. Head coach Michael Yeakey looks forward to having a large number of first-year speakers who “are enthusiastic and are willing to try new things.”
Experienced team members, like senior Lena Yeakey, are most excited for opportunities to go to the State tournament because, “It’s a lot more competition than we usually see and it’s fun to spend time traveling with the team.” Joel Yoder, a freshman who is new to speech and debate, is more excited to “learn a lot about new things that I normally wouldn’t care about. But now that I’m researching, it’s really interesting.”
Even though Coach Yeakey gets to work with more students this year, he realizes that the students will struggle with being overcommitted. Many of these students are involved in other extracurriculars, such as theater, basketball, and music lessons. Yeakey explained that in speech and debate “success is directly proportionate to how much time and effort you put into it.”
These involved students have varying goals for the season, from qualifying for Nationals to just wanting to have fun and accomplish something. Coach Yeakey enjoys having this wide range of ambitions and loves spending a lot of quality time with individuals. “Most of the coaching happens when I’m in a smaller group. I get to know students on a different kind of level.”
~Jesse