One of John Carroll’s oldest competitive teams (1891) is earning impressive results in its early events this season.
JCU Speech and Debate has competed in three tournaments this year and won championships at each event. Tate Farinacci ’25 won first place for his one-on-one argumentation at the national season-opening virtual tournament. He also won the award for top debater in the field.
Otterbein College hosted the first in-person and public speaking tournament of the year. Katarina Cannata ’25 won first place in the novice division of the International Parliamentary Debate Association style debate. Ricky Grasso ’25 placed third in the tournament. In public speaking events, Syd Oakleaf ’25 earned first place in public speaking for her After Dinner Speaking and took fourth place in extemporaneous speaking. Tate Farinacci ’25 took fifth place in extemporaneous and finished sixth in impromptu speaking.
Brent Brossmann, professor and speech and debate coach, says his team is putting in the work needed to achieve these stellar results.
“The team is young but very dedicated,” he said. “They are working very hard each week, performing and critiquing each other in official meetings for both speech and debate, but also in unofficial venues they hold for each other. In every setting, all the participants critique before the coaches do, so the students all have a better understanding of what the judges are looking for and how to handle criticism which they take as fuel for improvement.”
Several team members opted to spend fall break competing virtually in the Bowling Green State University tournament. Laken Kincaid ’24 won the tournament in media broadcast reporting and Katarina Cannata ’25 won the tournament in novice impromptu. Kincaid says they enjoy the competitive atmosphere of the events and know they’re learning valuable traits for their future profession.
The speech and debate team has given me so many skills I will take into my future career. As an aspiring journalist, these limited prep events show how to get a story out with limited time. Also, public speaking and persuasion are imperative skills in the workforce.
JCU Speech and Debate has earned six first-place finishes and ten awards overall through the first three tournaments of the session.
Original source can be found here.
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