Brawling brains

How many of you have been to a high school football game? Basketball game? Soccer game?

Most of you probably answered yes.

But now another question -- how many have ever gone to a speech and debate tournament? What about a scholar bowl tournament?

It would be surprising if 10 percent of high school students answered yes to that question.

Students who participate in after-school activities -- not involving a ball -- are just as dedicated to their competitions as high school athletes. And they're good at it, too.

Jackson High School's speech and debate coach Bob Clubbs said in the past six years he's coached the program, at least 20 students have competed at the state level.

Last year, Jackson student Audrey Stanfield took first place in the radio speaking category, and Central High School student Emily Ponder placed fifth.

Ponder, a senior, has competed at the state level every year since she was a freshman.

The New Madrid County Central, Saxony Lutheran and Central high school scholar bowl teams all went to state last year, and Jackson made it the previous year.

Jackson High School students, from left, Zach Dumey, Jesse Eichhorn, Caleb Jones and Emily Thompson, competed against Notre Dame in the Scholar Bowl. (Fred Lynch)

So what exactly happens at a speech and debate tournament?

Speech and debate -- also known as forensics -- tournaments have several different categories in which students can compete. These include dramatic interpretation, humorous interpretation, duet acting, poetry reading, prose reading, storytelling, radio speaking, original oratory, extemporaneous speaking, Lincoln-Douglas debate and public forum debate.

In several of these categories -- the interpretation event, duet acting and storytelling -- students must memorize a piece of work to speak about for at least 8 minutes. Original oratory competitors must write an original piece of work to read aloud.

Most students who competed in speech and debate during high school say it was a rewarding experience.

"Speech tournaments were an intellectual experience," said Lyndon Chen, a Dexter High School graduate.

"The individual competitions almost encouraged you to be underprepared in a way, yet sound more informed than your opponent," Chen said. "In the debate section, the issues were always changing so it never got boring, and I enjoyed the challenge."

Scholar bowl is another activity that often falls into the shadow of high school athletics.

At these tournaments, two teams of four students compete in tension-filled rounds of question answering.

The questions asked aren't the run-of-the-mill trivia, either. Students are asked tough calculus problems and questions about books most people have never heard of. Questions about science and music, architecture and archaeology, history and philosophy are fair game at scholar bowl tournaments.

In the end, it comes down to the students who know their stuff and are fastest on the buzzer.

"Scholar bowl has been one of the best parts of my high school career," said Jesse Kimball, a captain of the Central High School scholar bowl team.

While these students are devoted to their activities, they also find time to make themselves stand out during their high school career.

Central debater and scholar bowl captain Matthew Hileman was crowned Winter Ball king Saturday. New Madrid County Central student Woody Smelser wins the first-place individual medal at almost every scholar bowl tournament and was named to the all-state scholar bowl team last year. Smelser is also the tight end for the school's football team and was named to the all-conference first team last year.

"At New Madrid County Central, the academic team is the epitome of cool," Smelser said. "If you aren't playing quiz bowl, well, you are probably doing something way more fun and much less demanding."

Scholar bowl players have an aura about them, Smelser said.

"This radiant glow of energy conveys their tendencies to spend too much time in the library and too little attention to their hair," he said. "Come on, what beautiful girl doesn't admire a scholar bowler with jeans that are too short and a wrinkled polo?"

Ah, the life of an all-state scholar.