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Josh Wartel competed for Lake Braddock Secondary School. He was a MBA Extemp Round Robin, Patriot Games, Patriot Games Round Robin, TOC, Blue Key Round Robin, two-time Villager and three-time Virginia state champion. He was a finalist at NCFLs, three-time NSDA finalist and the 2015 United States final round winner. He will be studying at Brown University.
After placing third in the 2014-2015 National Points Race and winning the final round of last year’s NSDA U.S. Extemp competition, Wartel agreed to talk with Extemp Central about his career.
First Josh, thanks for sitting down with us to discuss your season and career
Thanks for having me!
How did you first get involved in extemporaneous speaking?
I went to a secondary school, Lake Braddock, in Burke, Virginia, and in seventh grade I saw a poster for the speech and debate club. My mom wanted me to get involved with something since I didn’t know many people at Lake Braddock. I showed up to one of the meetings, met the coach, Duane Hyland, and competed a few weeks later in Student Congress. For two years, I focused on Student Congress, competing at locals and states. The summer before my freshman year, I was encouraged by both my coach, Hyland, and TOC champion extemper Ben Constine to go to the George Mason Institute of Forensics (GMIF). There I gave my very first extemp speech ever, in which I claimed for about six minutes that Michele Bachman could win the GOP nomination in 2012.
What were some of the most significant challenges that you initially faced in the early years of your career?
I was really impatient when I was just starting out. I wanted to become very good, very quickly. It took me a while to build up a knowledge base (I didn’t know what ASEAN or NAFTA were or how to pronounce Shinzo Abe) and to really feel comfortable within the form of a seven-minute speech. I also didn’t know how to control my breathing and pause when I was starting out. I had to work through most of those issues the summer before sophomore year as Rob Warchol, a Mason extemper who was one of my coaches, threw rocks at me and yelled “You’re the future, Wartel!”
When did you first realize that you had a special “talent” in extemporaneous speaking relative to other events in forensics?
I thought for a long time that Student Congress would be my main event on the national circuit. My freshman year at Patriot Games I only entered in Congress, narrowly missed breaking to semi-finals and decided to come back the next day and watch the extemp final. It was a real eye-opening experience because Lily Nellans, Isabelle Taft, Nathan Leys and Constine were all in the final. I knew, as I was watching that final round, that I wanted to be a great extemper.
Last season it took you a while to get your first national circuit victory, but then you went on a tear in the winter and ended up winning the first two major championships of the season (the MBA Extemp Round Robin and the Extemp TOC) along with Villiger and the George Mason Patriot Games. Would you say you got off to a slow start or was this part of a process to put you into contention later?
I don’t know if it was really a slow start. Maybe I was just a bit unlucky. I got better as the year went on certainly, but most of the bad results at the beginning of the year came down to bad luck. A tough question in the Yale final, some lousy judging at Blue Key, you can never quite know what is going wrong.
Winning the MBA Extemp Round Robin is the highlight of any extemper’s career. What steps did you take to prepare for the tournament and ensure a successful outcome?
After Patriot Games was over, I immediately turned the page to focus on MBA. Instead of going on vacation during winter break, I spent the two weeks before MBA just filing and giving speeches roughly every other day. It was a lot of fun. I even had this whiteboard over my computer where I would count down the number of days left until the tournament began. When I arrived in Nashville on Thursday, I sort of kept up the routine of filing and giving speeches. I had a lot of faith in the experience from the past two years. The first round I drew this question, something like “How should the international community respond to the decline of the nation-state in the Middle East?” and I just made a mess of it; that frustrated me. But I sort of talked over my mental state with my coach who was there, AK Komanduri, and re-focused on pausing, just slowing the entire approach down, before the second day. The only other change I really made was I moved out of the prep room that everyone else was using into this classroom next door. Getting a room all to myself was calming and helped me tune out the distraction of other extempers. Incidentally, I did a lot of tuning out in the second and third days of the tournament. I could have done twenty rounds if that’s what it took to win because I was in a nice rhythm.
Was your MBA win arguably the highlight of the season considering your close loss the previous year?
The loss my junior year hurt. I led all ten rounds, and the rules they handed out before the tournament even laid out the tiebreaks which should have determined the winner. I had all of the tiebreaks over Lily and so I felt I was the clear winner when I saw the results packet later. But at the time I just went along with this made-up decider – the five-judge panel in the exhibition round. There was a complete lack of transparency and plenty of blame to go around. I still feel like I was cheated out of the most prestigious championship in the country. It was nice to win, of course, this year, but that’s really separate from my junior year.
During your career, what was your favorite tournament to attend and why?
Definitely Patriot Games at George Mason. They put on a great Round Robin, which I was lucky enough to win this year, and since I went to the George Mason Institute of Forensics (GMIF) every summer and lived ten minutes away from the tournament, Patriot Games meant a lot to me. Sophomore year Patriot Games was my first big final round on a stage. I momentarily forgot my third point this year in the final round and still managed to recover to win a tough final over Justin Graham so I’m very proud of that effort. I accidentally stepped on and broke Justin’s runner-up trophy so I want to apologize for that too.
You made the final round of U.S. Extemp at National Speech and Debate Association (NSDA) National Tournament three years in a row. What do you think enabled you to achieve this rare feat?
A good amount of luck, for sure. Sophomore year I gave a terrible health care speech in the first quarter-final round and then drew a Massachusetts Senate election question in the next round. I guess the Extemp God was watching over me. To really answer your question though, I think a few factors really benefited me. I never paid attention to who was in my rounds; I always made sure I was hydrated and well fed. If I wasn’t feeling that confident, I’d have one of my parents or teammates sit in on the round, just to signal to myself that even Round 12, the second semi-final at NSDAs, was just another speech. Finally, NSDAs is the last tournament of the year; I never wanted the season to end unless it had to.
You won the final round of the NSDA National Tournament, but ended up just shy of winning the title from Brian Yu of Monte Vista High School (CA). By your standards, how did you feel about this loss and your final round victory?
That loss was a bit different than anything else I’ve ever experienced. For one, I was really confident I was going to win. I felt like I had been really solid and workmanlike the entire week, even against really good competition like Brian and Jay Sirot. I gave a great practice speech the night before the final. I watched the series finale of Friday Night Lights on my off-day too because, you know, “clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose.” I remember in the prep room I was relaxed, making jokes, which was different from the previous years.
Anyone who was watching the awards ceremony saw how disappointed I was when I was announced as third place. It’s not what you dream of. And, because I won the final round, I had to wait just off-stage for five to ten minutes after I got my third-place trophy. I’m waiting there, just feeling sorry for myself, and Brian Anderson, who won International Extemp, is hugging his coaches and they’re all deservedly overjoyed and crying, and I’m thinking, “I’m just here so I don’t get fined.”
When I reflect back on that loss, I think it will always be bittersweet. But even if I knew what I know now, that I wasn’t going to win, I would do it all again. It’s painful to lose, but there is defiantly lightness, a satisfaction, in speaking in front of a huge audience, with my friends and family watching the live stream. I’m really grateful for all the support I received over the past four years, even when I was arrogant, unkind or undeserving. I tried to do my best and maybe it wasn’t enough, but I still had some of the best times out there on that stage.
If you could change anything about extemporaneous speaking, what would it be?
Three things. First, we need more source checks. I’m pretty sure that lots of very good extempers are making up or misrepresenting their sources. I know I did a lot of that my first few years on the circuit because I wanted to win and knw I wasn’t going to be caught. Until we consistently and randomly source check extempers at big tournaments like Harvard and NSDAs, there is no reason to think this fraud, which is a threat to the legitimacy and academic value of extemp, will stop.
Second, I’d get more women into the event. Now I’m not sure how to do this, and I really haven’t heard many solutions but gender equality is an enormous problem in the extemp and speech community. We didn’t have a single female extemper in either of the NSDA final rounds this year. Not one! It’s hurting the event, robbing us of half of the talent pool. There are a lot of different explanations for the lack of progress, but we can’t keep making excuses for the problem or pretending it doesn’t exist.
Third, I would turn the Extemp TOC at Northwestern into a bracket-style competition. They could still break the same number of competitors—24—and give 8 byes into the octofinal round. They could triple flight with seeds 9 through 24. Then you would have octonfinals, quarters, semis and the final round with just two extempers. Use three minute cross-ex. I think it would bring novelty to the extemp circuit and would attract a lot of support. If not Extemp TOC, then maybe another tournament could try a similar format.
What advice would you give to younger competitors that are just starting out their careers and that hope to achieve the level of success that you have?
Obviously you need to work hard. I never subscribed to the belief that you have to cut a certain number of articles or give a certain number of practice speeches. I used to give a practice speech every day and then one day I decided I didn’t need to practice like that anymore. However, if you’re just out there having fun, screwing around with your teammates, you’re wasting your time. Part of being a really good extemper is having that air of professionalism. I remember the first time I ever went to GMIF in 2011 I saw this unknown extemper from Iowa give this practice speech on Libya in a peer-critique round. Peer-critique rounds at GMIF don’t even have any coaches in them, just other students, so it’s really easy to blow them off. But as I remember it, this guy gave a great speech that definitely taught me a thing or two about Libya. I still vaguely remember his AGD. Incidentally, the Iowan I watched happened to be Nathan Leys, who tore up the high school circuit the next few years. The lesson here isn’t just that hard work pays off or inspires effort of others; it’s that you have to buy into the process. I put in a lot of tired evenings, neglected a lot of different high school experiences, and even missed my high school graduation because I loved what I did. Young extempers need to love a little part of the struggle if they want to win.
Other advice:
If you can, attend GMIF (or a similar camp) to get better. Many other great extempers and I couldn’t have been so successful without GMIF. I’d also say that a lot of good extempers never break out because they don’t have the right coach for them. Sometimes the coach who helped you learn extemp, who helped you win locals, isn’t the right coach for you to win national tournaments with. I went out and hired a personal coach my sophomore year, Jacob Abraham, who was then a college coach at Mason, and that was probably one of the best decisions I ever made.
From a technical perspective, work on pausing. I tell almost every young extemper that they need to pause more and breathe more. You shouldn’t be running out of breathe giving an extemp speech. A lot of the delivery issues on ballots, from a monotone voice to having a weird speech pattern, can’t be fixed until you learn to pause like you would in a conversation.
How would you like people to remember your career?
No one even remembers Chase Harrison’s Dick Armey joke anymore so I don’t think they will remember me. I think MacArthur said it best: “Old extempers never die; they just fade away.”
What are your future academic and career plans?
I’m going to Brown University and I’m not sure what I’m going to major in yet but I’ll figure things out. I hope I can still stay active in the extemp community. If you want coaching advice or any sort of help, feel free to Facebook message or DM me on Twitter. The door is always open.
Thanks Josh for sitting down for this interview.
Anytime. Thanks for the opportunity.