Forensic team charges forward

The Liberty University forensics team brought some truth to the university’s motto “Training Champions for Christ” when they competed in the tournament they hosted on campus Sept. 29-30.

Liberty’s team won the Limited Team Sweepstakes division, which means they placed first in the division that included schools of approximately the same size.

“We represented Liberty University well, I believe, and our team individually did well. Just about everyone ‘broke,’ which basically means they reached the final round,” Christian Collins, one of the forensics team coaches, said.

“Shad Hicks, our newest member, and a freshman, got first place in his event, which is really exciting for us,” Collins added.

Liberty’s forensics team welcomed other teams from James Madison University, George Mason University and the University of North Carolina-Charlotte, among others.

Collins is very proud of the team and explained that simply being on the team benefited the students in many ways.

“Personally, I think that it breeds professionalism,” Collins said. “First of all, they’re growing in that avenue, and they have to be on time, they have to dress well. In any line of work that you will be doing, you need to be able to speak well. You have to get your point across whether in business meetings, or interacting with people one-on-one.”

According to Collins, most of the team members have done forensics or something similar in high school.

“Competitions are a two-day whirlwind,” Whitney Rutherford, one of the team members, said. “Each weekend features two tournaments. We have two preliminary rounds before finals are announced. Finals consist of six people per event. The competition is grueling, but the days are also filled with team-bonding and growing closer with other teams.”

Rutherford mentioned the vigorous process that she and her teammates must undergo for each competition.

“Preparation for impromptu speaking includes scouring websites and news sources as well as listening keenly for interesting facts that pop up in day-to-day life,” Rutherford said. “Events such as persuasion require keeping every source up to date, running the speech multiple times to keep memorization fresh, and timing the speech over and over to be sure it is perfect.”

“Competitions are high-intensity and high-stress. They’re really worked up because they have butterflies in their stomachs, I presume,” Collins said. “It’s riveting for them — they just love it. You start to make all these connections with all these other schools. They have a big network of people that they’re friends with outside of LU, and they get to see these friends every weekend.”

Some of the topics that the forensics team has covered have been as diverse as a poetry interpretation on what it means to be a man, communication analysis on Candy Chang’s “Before I Die,” a duo interpretation on the true impact of teachers on society and an informative speech on philanthrocapitalism, discussing a brand-new way to give.

“I’m grateful for my co-coach, Meagan Roper, and to work with a great team of people. I consider them my friends,” Collins said.

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