Let's Talk About NSC

 The Grind Never Stops

Howdy, y'all! BUST has had no time for sleep these past few weeks, as our national season continues on in full force. This past weekend we got back from Tokyo at 2:00AM Friday morning, and at 2:00PM Friday afternoon 5 of us loaded into the vans for Muncie, Indiana. The reason for this tight turnaround was the National Speech Championship Tournament located at Ball State University. NSC was the 1st of 3 National tournaments (or 2nd of 4 if you count the International tournament) in our national season lineup.

 

What is NSC? 

The National Speech Championship was created by Ryan Lauth, an Alumnus of Northwestern Speech, specifically designed to highlight quality and equity among teams. NSC is different from other national tournaments because of its highly limited entry. At AFA you can bring 66 speeches amongst the 11 categories, and at NFA you can bring as many as you qualify. NSC was created with smaller teams in mind who don't have near enough students to qualify 66 events and therefore have a much steeper battle to face when trying to rank in team sweepstakes. NSC allows each team to bring 2 speeches per event, for a total of 22 speeches. Each competitor can bring as many events as they want, allowing for a team as small as 2 students to bring a full entry! This year BUST brought 5 competitors: myself, David Daye, Joseph Cyrus, Rodrigo Trujillo, and Joshua Timmons. We jokingly started calling ourselves "the fierce five" on the way to the tournament, but after the competition, the name became even more fitting. 

Competition

Because we only brought 5 students, each of us was carrying a minimum of 4 events, which can be a lot to manage. We were constantly running from room to room, in order to make it to all of our events. However, in all the crazy, the days went by super fast because we were so busy! Saturday's competition consisted of 2 rounds of prelims and then Semifinals. Sunday started out with revealing the finalists in each event, and then the final rounds to follow. This made the tournament super efficient and smooth! Luckily the five of us dug deep and delivered heartfelt performances, allowing Bradley to bring home the overall team sweepstakes award for the third year in a row. While we've been going to NSC for the past three years, because of COVID, this was our first in-person NSC. 

We had such a wonderful time in Muncie, even though the jet lag was real! NSC was a true celebration of performance and community! I am so glad we pushed through the travel and craziness for the opportunity to participate in the tournament. 

Talk Soon!