East students rejoice as the news comes at the beginning of the week that Friday will be a short day. Teachers adjust their schedules, students plan for the start of the long weekend, but what goes on while the rest of the students leave the building?
Often this tournament is a source of confusion for many non-speech members of the student body. “Good luck!” is something that members of the – 16 time state championship winning team – hear, despite not actually competing that evening. In fact, far more goes on than the majority of students imagine, and this year is no exception.
This year marks a record for the tournament that has come to be known as the “Spartan Invitational”. Not only will there be close to 700 entries, but schools from as far as Denver are coming to compete in 10 events.
This is expected to be one of the larger tournaments in the midwest this year, largely from East’s’ success both stateside, and nationally. In addition to winning state last year, East also placed in the top 10 teams in the country, as well as having one finalist, one semifinalist, and two octo-finalists.
The East tournament sat around 400 entries last year, and was still one of the bigger state competitions. With the size of this tournament, East is certified to give away bids to the National Individual Events Tournament of Champions or NIETOC (and in some events, might give away up to 48 bids).
Right now, the speech team is frantically looking for room for all of the competitors. All 107 rooms at East are being occupied, as well as various storage rooms, closets, gyms, and locker rooms. For example there are set to be 6 rounds of Extemporaneous speaking – an event in which students have a half hour to prepare a 5 minute speech. Not only do students need rooms for their rounds of 7, but they also need a prep area to write and practice speeches. I talked to coach Mr. Herink and he said “We are honestly struggling to find space for all the students. Registration closes at 5pm (as of 3pm Tuesday), and not all of the teams have even signed up yet; we are still expecting two more schools to register.”
As for the students on the Lincoln East team, they will be frantically running concessions, score sheets, and tabulation tables to keep the tournament running smoothly, and release results as fast as possible. This is one of the last regular season tournaments of the season and so students will be anxiously awaiting awards to see how they place moving into districts and state.
The tournament, consisting of 3 preliminary rounds and 1 finals round, will end up being a 9 hour competition, with 5 hours of in-round time.
With this growth in size it appears like this year’s Spartan Invitational will be an event to remember.