By Amoli Deshpande— Editor-In-Chief
Sharon High School’s Speech Team won first place in a competition in Revere, Massachusetts, on Saturday, October 28.
Junior Nasiba Alikulova and Sophomores Marcus Myers and Ashar Amjad returned with astounding results from the Revere Fall Festival. The team received first place in the competition’s small schools award and Alikulova won second place, Myers won 3rd place, and Amjad won fifth place in Impromptu Speech. Impromptu Speech is an extemporaneous event where competitors have six minutes to select a topic, brainstorm their ideas, outline the speech, and finally, deliver the speech. Myers also won first place in Song Soliloquy, which was a tournament-specific event.
Speech team captain Nasiba Alikulova still retains a humble outlook on their performance. “I think it’s nice, but I’m not trying to take things too seriously because there weren’t a ton of people there…so it’s nice to have a…reassurance again but I mean we’re not super genius or anything,” said Alikulova. However, she reflects positively on the tournament’s results. “We worked hard and I’m glad that this was the outcome.”
Amjad furthers that he was “over the moon” after the tournament and explains that the entire team was ecstatic when coming home. “I remember we were driving back in the car with Marcus’s mom, and it was great because the fact of the matter is when…you’re with two friends like Nasiba and Marcus, and you’re just talking about speech… you’re, like, really happy,” said Amjad.
Amjad admits that the team was shocked that all of them had qualified for the final round. “I came into the room first, and then Marcus came into the room, Nasiba came into the room and he’s like, oh, all three of us are here. It was kinda like that Spider-Man meme.” Amjad refers to a viral 2011 Spiderman meme where three identically dressed Spidermen are pointing at each other in shock.
Furthermore, the team doesn’t fall short on highlighting the hard work of each other. Alikulova mentions the amount of commitment Myers and Amjad have shown to the team. “I’m proud of Marcus and Ashar. Marcus and Ashar always bring the energy they show up to a lot of meetings,” said Alikulova.
Similarly, Marcus Myers, Vice-President of the Speech team, admits that he didn’t expect his results at Revere. “It was definitely surprising to me it was kind of shocking because I previously never won a competition last year,” said Myers.
Similarly, Amjad notes how he, Myers, and Alikulova are “the pillars” of the speech team and spotlights Alikulova and Myer’s leadership.
When it comes to the preparation aspect of the tournament, Alikulova says that the nature of the Impromptu speech event didn’t allow them to do a lot of it. “We practiced…giving impromptu speeches on anything else that we could do but there’s no real way to prepare besides having some good life stories to draw on that you can use in a speech and just getting used to thinking on your feet,” she said. “It’s more of a go-with-the-flow kind of event which draws people to it because it likes minimal preparation.”
However, Myers does mention that he did put preparation into the various aspects of a great speech. “So we did a lot of work, including myself, in like vocal inflection, working on facial expression(s) and gestures during a speech and how we can formulate a good speech…” he said. “I’ve done lots of practice rounds in my room by myself just talking into like a mirror or like anything and it’s kind of embarrassing but it works, I guess!”
Furthermore, Alikulova admits that the attendance of the competition may have played a role in the outcome of it. “There weren’t a ton of people there, I think that definitely helped us (since) we all managed to…break into the final round so that secured us top six,” said Alikulova.
Myers also won first place in song soliloquy where he had to choose a song and speak it, instead of singing it; Myers chose Baby by Justin Bieber. Myers says he “dramatized it (the song) which was pretty cool.”
The team did have a fair set of challenges as well. Amjad says that the team experienced a lot of anxiety before the tournament. “We’re just nervous or something because every single time (at tournaments) we have headaches, and it feels like the worst time. We’re, like, really nervous, and I was really nervous,” admitted Amjad
Similarly, Myers says that there was a lot of anticipation on how they were going to fair. “Yet after the three rounds, there’s kind of a little bit of nervousness, some excitement, some anxiety, on whether or not you break.” Breaking is when competitors do well enough in preliminary rounds that they can continue to the tournament’s elimination rounds.
The speech team’s performance comes with a lot of benefits for the team’s future. Alikulova says that Revere was a good competition to set a new speech season. “It was good because we’re still a new group so we are still trying to build up our accomplishments and it was good to have that as like a starting point,” said Alikulova.
Furthermore, Alikulova says that their win will prove beneficial to the team’s membership, which is smaller than more established clubs, like Debate or DECA (Distributed Education Clubs of America). “It takes a while like… DECA, Model UN all those big clubs they’ve been around for a while they have a chance to like grow and it’s not that like every small thing increases our numbers ten-fold but it’s good to have some progress as a kind of reassurance that the efforts are paying off,” said Alikulova.
Similarly, Amjad says that their win will help speech not get overshadowed by the debate team. “I do think that not a lot of people know about speech because debate is kind of like the bigger one, it kinda takes everything…but I think that showing people that speech is something you can also win awards in will really bring awareness to the club and show how for people who are competitive just how fun it can be.”
Amjad furthers that their win at Revere has given them confidence for future competitions. “You’re just talking about speech, and you’re, like, really, like, elated because you guys won sweepstakes…and you’re just like, oh, we can go to nationals. We can, as a team, go to nationals.”
Additionally, Amjad says that he hopes their win can show what Sharon’s speech team is capable of. “We’re still a smaller school, but we have people who can compete… and really compete in the Massachusetts league and try our best to win,” said Amjad.
Sharon High School’s speech team meets on Mondays and Fridays at 2:45 pm in room 2406. You can also follow them @sharonspeech on Instagram.