Team Wyoming aims to level playing field

Each year as student athletes take to the hardwood or the wrestling mats throughout the state, there is another batch of students that participate in a different indoor activity as they compete in speech and debate. Don't let the dress suits, jackets and ties fool you though; this activity is highly competitive.

It is so competitive, in fact, that the National Speech and Debate tournament can be quite exclusive. It was only a matter of time, then, for the free market to see a niche and provide one in the form of private debate tutoring companies. While that may have opened it up to a few more participants, it was still exclusive as tuition could cost as much as $4,000 a semester.

Enter Team Wyoming and Director Matthew Liu.

"Team Wyoming is a project of the University of Wyoming debate team, where my actual job and role is. I'm the director of forensics for the University of Wyoming," said Liu. "The University of Wyoming debate team has been trying to be more involved with high school debate over the last couple of years and we've had a couple of different projects. When the pandemic began, we had something called Wyoming Debate Network where we hosted, arranged, scheduled and judged practice debates for folks."

Looking to create something more sustainable and stable, Liu borrowed the idea of private debate tutoring companies and made it public and cost affordable. So cost affordable, in fact, that it is free for any Wyoming high school student.

"By adopting a 'many hands make light work' model where we all contribute from time-to-time to the Team Wyoming Initiative, we try to provide the same service that those expensive private models do but for anyone in Wyoming for free," Liu said.

There is another aspect to Team Wyoming beyond just being a tutoring service, though. While a number of physical schools have a speech and debate team, many virtual schools do not. Kaitlyn and Jaden Campbell both attend Wyoming Virtual Academy (WYVA), which is based in Lusk, but competed in athletics and activities for Saratoga Middle High School (SMHS) up until recently. Last year, SMHS had a four member team. This year, it has no team and so the Campbell sisters compete for WYVA as part of its inaugural debate team, an idea proposed by Liu.

"Caroline Hickerson, the principal of Wyoming Virtual Academy, was extremely receptive and very interested," Liu said. "So, this year, we started a debate program at Wyoming Virtual Academy and Kaitlyn and Jaden have been two of our all-stars there."

Just this past weekend, in fact, the Campbell sisters took the top prize in policy at Cheyenne South High School's Bison Stampede. Not only did they beat out Riverton High School in the finals, they beat out last year's champions, Cheyenne East. For now, the team is small but mighty as they have only three members in total. The third member placed 4th this weekend in dramatic interpretation.

"It was very unfortunate to learn that my sister and I would be unable to compete with Saratoga's Speech & Debate team this year because of a conflict with timing. We had to commit to Team Wyoming before Saratoga was able to determine whether or not they would be able to fill their team, so we decided to compete through WYVA with Team Wyoming's help," said Jaden Campbell. "This resulted in one of the best experiences that we have had so far in our high school career, and this would not have been possible without the previous experience we had with Coach (Sheryl) Hunter. With this Speech & Debate season, we have taken the foundation that Coach Hunter provided for us and have expanded our possibilities in order to continue to learn."

Even as WYVA's speech and debate team moves forward in the season and sees success, Liu is hoping that Team Wyoming will continue to grow. The director appealed to parents, who may not have heard of the new program or who may be on the fence about it.

"If you want your students to have training in public speaking, in critical thinking, in research; there's no better avenue for all of those things than debate," said Liu. "We would love to provide a free tutoring service when it comes to that so your children can compete and do so successfully."

Those interested in Team Wyoming can contact Liu by emailing [email protected] or visiting https://wyodebateroundup.weebly.com/team-wyoming.html.