All-State Speech!

I do plan on making this blog mostly about my family and our experiences. But, just this once, I want to 'brag' about my students and their accomplishments. As most of you know, I am the competitive speech coach at ADM. Over the last few months, we been attending competitions landing us at all-state last Saturday.

For those non-speech people, all-state is like going to state in any sport--but it's suppose to be a festival, not a competition. But, of course, they offer a critic's choice award for the 1 group in each category that catches the judge's eye. That, in itself, turns the festival into a competition. ADM was competing against schools like WDM Valley and Spencer, who practically have teams larger than our school. The odds were not in our favor.





But, on Saturday, David overtook Goliath. Our small 8 person team took home the critic's choice award. Our script about school bullying moved not only myself, but the judge to tears. It was the strongest performance I have every seen from them and I'm still not quite sure what provoked the change. Was it the all-state atmosphere? Was it the article about gay teen suicide I had them read before performing? Was it enticing them with Hickory Park? Who knows. What I do know is that my students put their hearts into that piece and helped bring home the award.

As I'm still coming down off of cloud 9, I find myself replaying the moment they said "ADM-Adel" in Stephens Auditorium and running past heart-broken teams to claim my award. But right after being handed the award, it dawns on me: Can I ever top this moment? Will I be able to get my group here next year?

In the end, I've realized that it was great experience for my students and myself. I am a proud coach of these kids and the season we had.

After we won the award, one of my students approached me with this question: "Mrs. Seidl, compared to the birth of your children, where does this rank?"

Pretty damn close.