Bright Future Ahead for the Speech Team

EAST PEORIA — The Illinois Central College Speech Team is off to an early head start with a third place win at Moraine Valley Community College, despite a freshmen majority.

The attending members, consisting of three freshmen and two sophomores, showed their skill at the tournament receiving a total of four first place rankings. Marques Brown, captain, earned first place rankings in Poetry Reading, Persuasion and ISIS, an experimental event. Freshmen Christina Kaufman and Jill Kern went uncontested in Duo Interpretation, resulting in a first place finish. Kern also earned a fourth place ranking in Prose Reading. Also, freshman Alexander Pabon earned fifth place in Extemporaneous Speaking and second place in Impromptu Speaking.

Brown said, “The best finish we’ve ever had, besides the second place national finish, would have been, at a regular tournament, fourth or fifth place. So to compete and ending up winning third over all went really well coming from a very young team.”

Kern also commented, “Everybody was super good at what they did, and you felt like ‘Wow I’m in the presence of some awesome people!’ and then I made it into finals, and I [thought], ‘Holy-cow, I am one of these awesome people!’”

The team is highly anticipated to continue to do well throughout the season and is looking forward to the national Phi Rho Pi tournament in Denver, Colorado in April of 2014.

“It’s very exciting, and I think we are going to do well, and it’s not about winning third, second or first. It’s the fact that we are becoming a very close team,” Brown said.

“I want to make [speech] all of my good memories out of ICC,” Kern said.

Brown described being a part of the speech team as a great way to get over the common fear of public speaking, glossophobia. He said, “I feel like the number one fear in the world is public speaking, so if you can speak and you can emote anything to an audience, I think that is a talent everyone should share. That’s why I compete, not for the trophies, but for being able to say that I compete in the number one fear in the world and I have fun doing it.”

The advice he would give to students to overcome this fear is, “Public speaking is having fun, being yourself…once people realize that speaking is being yourself, at the end of the day that’s what makes a successful speaker.”

Students can see what speech is all about this Friday, Oct. 25, starting at 11 a.m. and Saturday, Oct. 26, at 8 a.m. at ICC’s East Peoria Campus as ICC hosts its annual tournament.