THE ECHO

By Miryam Starr // Managing Editor

With over a hundred kids trying out for Speech and Debate this year, it has become one of Avon High School’s most well-known clubs. Its season lasts from October to mid-March and contains eighteen competitions. With roughly seventy-five clubs at AHS, something about Speech and Debate is drawing the attention of students despite the time commitment.

Idowu Adeleke, has been participating in Speech and Debate since her Freshmen year, recalls what got her interested in Speech and Debate initially.

“I already knew about Speech and Debate, primarily Debate because of upperclassmen that had graduated already, and it sounded really cool. Frankly, I was not really interested the first time I heard of it, but I figured it’d also be something that was great for my future, and everyone needs public speaking skills, so I might as well just go for it, and that’s what got me in.” Adeleke said.

Mrs. Langford, the current Speech and Debate head coach and English teacher here at AHS details why she believes that Speech and Debate is such an important aspect of many students lives.

“In a school this large you have got to find different lanes for kids. I mean, it’s Speech and Debate. Is it for everyone? No. But thank goodness there’s robotics and thank goodness there’s band. And so, I think Speech and Debate is an integral part of the fabric of the school, and it’s not that these kids don’t have something else to do, but it definitely provides another lane.” Langford said.

With over a hundred try-outs for Speech and Debate, they often only end up taking about four kids for every event. There are thirteen events, and even then, the team is often capped at around forty students between sixteen coaches. This being said, the team has had a highly successful few years and does very well at competitions.

“We are now five-time sectional champions as well as three-time consecutive state champions, while I’ve been a part of the team. So, I can probably say that I’ve been a state champion for a 3A division school for the entirety of my high school career, and I hope to be four-time state champion. Weve also been district champions for the last four years I believe. So, we’re very accomplished these past couple years. Our club is fairly new since it really just started up during COVID.” Adeleke said.

Langford continued to add some context to the current state of the Speech and Debate team.

“What’s interesting is that Speech and Debate was active like twenty years ago and then it wasn’t for a long, long, long, long time, and so in 2020 I took it over. There were seven kids on the team, and they had never won, ever. Our school had never won a meet before. From 2020 to 2021 we grew from seven to seventy and we’ve never looked back.” Langford said.