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by Logan Scisco
Today, Extemp Central presents part two of its 2013-2014 Year in Review, covering the season’s top seven memorable, surprising, and controversial moments.
Part one of Extemp Central’s 2013-2014 Year in Review can be found here.
#7: Harrison Wins a Seat on the Millburn Board of Education
In November, Chase Harrison of Millburn High School (NJ), the 2011 winner of the Yale Invitational, attracted national media attention by defeating incumbent Millburn Board of Education Vice-President Rona Wenik and becoming the youngest elected official in New Jersey history. Harrison took 52% of the vote in the election, defeating Wenik by 152 votes. Harrison began his one-year term in January. After winning his seat, Harrison continued to make final rounds on the national circuit as he made the Exhibition Round at the Montgomery Bell Academy Extemp Round Robin for the second consecutive year and finished second for the third consecutive year at the Extemporaneous Speaking Tournament of Champions (TOC). Harrison’s 2013-2014 campaign ended at NSDA Nationals, where he placed eighth in United States Extemp. Harrison will be sitting down with Extemp Central for an interview that will be released in August.
#6: Adelman Argues for People in the IX Final and Wins Despite Going 8:29
Dylan Adelman of Lakeville South High School (MN), Minnesota’s 2014 Class 2A state extemp champion, finally broke into NSDA finals this year after being stopped the last two seasons in semi-finals. In the final round, Adelman reminded the extemp community of the importance of regular people in the subjects they discuss. Adelman’s emotional appeal in the final round convinced his judges, who crowned him this year’s NSDA IX final round national champion. This made Adelman the second Lakeville South extemper to win an NSDA final round and kept the IX final round championship trophy in Minnesota, where it has stayed for the last four seasons. However, Adelman’s win was not without controversy, as he spoke for 8:29 in the final, nearly a minute over the time limit. Adelman is not the first IX final round winner to go over time, though, as Aaron Mattis spoke for nearly nine minutes when he won the NSDA IX final in 2007. One wonders if this controversy will produce some change in how future NSDA extemp finals are handled since several of the judges on the final round panel did not keep their own time, nor were they informed of how long speakers took to get their point across. Adelman will be writing a piece about the importance of regular people in extemporaneous speaking, which will be posted to Extemp Central in August or September.
#5: The Montgomery Bell Academy Extemp Round Robin Witnesses a Tie for First Place, Which is Broken in the Exhibition Round
Prior to this season, the Montgomery Bell Academy Extemp Round Robin had never had a tie for first place. That changed in January when Lily Nellans of Des Moines Roosevelt High School (IA) erased Josh Wartel’s one rank lead in the final two rounds of the tournament. Although the tournament has tiebreaker procedures, tournament director Adam Johnson made the decision to have the Exhibition Round decide the outcome, with the ranks of seven Round Robin alumni judges crowning the champion. Nellans and Wartel were given the opportunity to strike one of the judges before the round and Hamilton Millwee and Logan Scisco’s ranks were discarded in deciding the outcome. In the Exhibition Round, Nellans triumphed by a 4-1 margin, securing her third consecutive Round Robin championship and sixth major title. This allowed Nellans to tie Kevin Troy’s mark for major championships.
My theory about the tie? Billy Tate, Montgomery Bell Academy’s esteemed coach who tragically passed away last spring, wanted some entertainment as he watched the round eating a Goo Goo Cluster.
And how did this year’s MBA participants fare at NCFL and NSDA Nationals? (Listed by order of finish. Competitors who did not make the Exhibition Round are listed in alphabetical order starting at Vaikunth Balaji)
*Lily Nellans: NCFL-2nd; NSDA-4th (IX)
*Josh Wartel: NCFL-3rd; NSDA-3rd (USX)
*Miles Saffran: NCFL-Semifinalist; NSDA-1st (IX)
*Chase Harrison: NSDA-8th (USX)
*Arel Rende: NSDA-1st (USX)
*Brian Anderson: NCFL-Octofinalist; NSDA-14th (USX)
*Vaikunth Balaji: NCFL-Octofinalist; NSDA-7th (IX)
*Rohan Dhoopar: NSDA-3rd (IX)
*Jack Glaser: N/A
*Jad Hamdan: NSDA-11th (USX)
*Christopher Jordan: NSDA-10th (USX)
*Lyubov Kapko: NSDA-Quarterfinalist (IX)
*Davis Larkin: NSDA-Quarterfinalist (IX)
*Jasper Primack: NCFL-Octofinalist; NSDA-4th (USX)
*Gabe Slater: NSDA-6th (IX)
*Will Walker: NCFL-4th; NSDA-12th (IX)
#4: Saffran Becomes the First Florida Extemper to Win International Extemp at NSDA Nationals
Bookending the 2013-2014 season was not the only thing that Miles Saffran managed to accomplish by winning this year’s NSDA International Extemp championship. He also became the first Florida extemper to win the IX title. Saffran arguably represented Florida’s best chance to walk away with the IX title since Rana Yared made two trips to the IX final round in 2001 and 2002, and he made the most of it by winning the tournament by eight ranks over Dylan Adelman of Lakeville South High School (MN). Saffran’s victory was aided by the fact that he brought a twelve rank lead into the IX final round. Interestingly, Saffran was Florida’s state champion this season in USX instead of IX. This might be the first time in extemp history that a competitor has won one extemp category on the state level and then won a national championship in the opposite category on the national level. It’s a testament to Saffran’s versatility as a speaker that he was able to do both this season.
This was Saffran’s road to the NSDA National Championship:
Wake Forest (Sept.): 1st
Yale Invitational (Sept.): 1st
New York City Invitational (Oct.): 1st
Florida Blue Key (Oct.): 1st-IX; 2nd-USX
Glenbrooks (Nov.): Semifinalist
George Mason (Dec.): 3rd-Round Robin; 4th-Patriot Games
Montgomery Bell Academy Extemp Round Robin (Jan.): 3rd
The Sunvitational (Jan.): 1st
Harvard (Feb.): 3rd
Florida Forensic League State Tournament (Mar.): 1st-USX
University of Kentucky TOC (Apr.): 1st
Extemp TOC (May): 3rd
NCFL Grand Nationals (May): Semifinalist
NSDA Nationals (June): 1st-IX
#3: Coscia Wins NCFL Nationals in the Biggest Upset of the Year
If Las Vegas bookmakers set odds for this year’s National Catholic Forensic League (NCFL) Grand National Tournament, Monica Coscia of Montville Township High School (NJ) would not have been deemed as a likely winner, especially considering the fact that the NCFL field was stronger than usual this year with six Montgomery Bell Academy Extemp Round Robin participants and a host of other state and TOC qualifying tournament champions. Prior to NCFL, Coscia had not reached the finals of a national circuit tournament, although she made semi-finals at the Yale Invitational in September and the Princeton Classic in December. At the New Jersey Forensic League (NJFL) State Tournament, Coscia finished runner-up in U.S. Extemp to notable national circuit competitor Chase Harrison. Even when Coscia made the final round at this year’s NCFL, she faced a daunting challenge of staring down 2012 NCFL champion Lily Nellans of Des Moines Roosevelt High School (IA) and MBA runner-up Josh Wartel of Lake Braddock Secondary School (VA). Nevertheless, in a difficult national final round that forced extempers to speak on the U.S. economy, Coscia defeated Nellans among the five judges, which served as the tiebreaker when both competitors ended up with identical cumulative scores. Coscia’s upset win, which made her the first New Jersey extemper to win the NCFL extemp championship in the twenty-first century, is a reminder to all extempers that every tournament is a new experience and that one does not need a national circuit pedigree to become a national champion.
#2: Rende Defends His NSDA U.S. Extemp National & Final Round Championships
Coming into the 2013-2014 season as a marked man, Arel Rende of Booker T. Washington High School (OK) quickly demonstrated that his 2013 NSDA USX win in Birmingham, Alabama was not a fluke. Rende won U.S. Extemp portion of the St. Mark’s Heart of Texas Invitational in October, won both halves of the University of Texas-Austin Longhorn Classic, and then beat more than 250 extempers to win Harvard in February. At the 2014 NSDA National Tournament, Rende successfully fought off more than 240 challengers to his U.S. Extemp championship and became the fourth extemper in NSDA history to repeat as champion. Rende’s repeat performance demanded that he also win the national final round for the second consecutive year. After a poor twelfth round, Rende entered the final ten ranks behind Josh Wartel of Lake Braddock Secondary School (VA). Giving a speech on the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing strategy, Rende took ten of the fifteen available first place ranks for a cumulative score of twenty-eight. This enabled him to win the final round by nineteen ranks, thereby giving him a seven rank victory in the tournament. Rende’s final round victory made him the first extemper in NSDA history to win the USX final round in consecutive years.
This was Rende’s road to the NSDA National Championship:
St. Mark’s (Oct.): 1st-USX; 3rd-IX
University of Texas (Dec.): 1st-USX; 1st-IX
Montgomery Bell Academy Extemp Round Robin: 5th
Harvard (Feb.): 1st
Oklahoma Secondary School Activities Association State Tournament (Apr.): 1st-6A USX
Extemp TOC (May): 5th
NSDA Nationals (June): 1st-USX
#1: Nellans Breaks Major Championship Record at Extemp TOC
In most years, Arel Rende’s victory at NSDA would have been enough to claim the top story of the season, but Lily Nellans of Des Moines Roosevelt High School (IA) broke a nine-year national circuit record at the Extemporaneous Speaking Tournament of Champions (TOC) at Northwestern University in May. Having tied Kevin Troy’s record of six major championships after winning the Montgomery Bell Academy Extemp Round Robin for the third time, Nellans proceeded to break the record at her next major championship tournament. In the TOC final, which featured a rematch of the MBA Exhibition Round, Nellans defeated Chase Harrison of Millburn High School (NJ) by six ranks to claim her third consecutive TOC championship. This gave Nellans seven major titles and allowed her to break Kevin Troy’s major championship record, which had stood since 2005. Although Nellans fell three places shy of the career Grand Slam at this year’s NSDA Nationals, her mark in major championships is unlikely to be matched in the near future, as no active competitor for 2014-2015 has a major championship on their resume. Similarly, her records of winning three MBA and three TOC titles may never be equaled again.
Here is Nellans timeline of major championships:
January 2012-Montgomery Bell Academy Extemp Round Robin
May 2012-Extemporaneous Speaking Tournament of Champions (TOC)
May 2012-National Catholic Forensic League (NCFL) Grand Nationals
January 2013-Montomgery Bell Academy Extemp Round Robin
May 2013-Extemporaneous Speaking Tournament of Champions (TOC)
January 2014-Montgomery Bell Academy Extemp Round Robin
May 2014-Extemporaneous Speaking Tournament of Champions (TOC)
And so goes the 2013-2014 season. Extemp Central looks forward to covering the exciting events of 2014-2015. Do you agree with our selection and ranking of this season’s events? Go to our Facebook page and let us know!