When attempting to communicate with toddlers, younger children or even some adults, the phrase “Use your words!” comes in handy. Fourteen students used their words and took a chance at winning $150 on Friday, April 8 at the University of Tampa’s 10th Bi-annual Speech Contest.
The event was co-hosted by the College of Arts and Letters and the Department of Speech, Theater and Dance.
Dr. Ann Marie Coats, the supervisor of this event, said that the contest takes place every semester and is publicized through flyers, OSLE’s weekly notices and global messages.
The topics of each speech included identity theft, atheism and monetary benefits for collegiate football players.
Many of the students had previous experience with public speaking.
Contestant Allyson Cosgrove, a sophomore criminology major, said that she has liked public speaking since high school, and thought it would be fun to enter the contest. Cosgrove’s speech was titled “Can You Be a Crime Scene Investigator,” and dealt with how shows such as COPS and CSI do not portray “reality” as realistically as some viewers may think.
While some contestants had previous experience on debate teams in high school Marelise Javier, a sophomore exercise science and sports major, said that although she has never had any serious problems with public speaking, she is not a very experienced speaker. Her speech was titled “Aphrodisiacs.”
The competition consists of two rounds, in which the original 14 contestants are narrowed down to six finalists, and then one winner.
Out of the 14 contestants, Tim Bourn, Cogley, Chris Laganas, Matt Saintsing, Marco Tarantino and Michael Vertie battled it out for the win.
The three top speakers were Laganas, Saintsing and Bourn. Bourn claimed the win.
Bourn is a freshman and theater major who gave an informative speech titled “More Than Mr. Rogers.” The iconic childhood hero had many great qualities about him, but the one that Bourn talked about was this: his sweaters.
Yes, Bourn did a speech not only about Mr. Rogers’ sweater collection, but also about sweaters as a whole, including the history of his sweaters, specific childhood references and the qualities of cashmere.
When asked if his theater background aided his victory, Bourn said, “I have gotten a lot of wonderful training in the fields of acting and public speaking.”
Jenna Labadie, one of the judges, said that judges are not only looking for, but are impressed by, memorized speeches.
The other judges were Carman Tarantino, instructor of language and linguistics; Dr. Robert Gonzalez, assistant professor of speech, theater and dance; and Virginia Wester, CFO of
Highway Safety Devices and judge for the competition since it’s beginning.
Labadie said that every year there are more and more speeches, which makes the judging a challenging process.
Cogley’s speech was titled “The Moral High Ground.” He said it only took him two hours to memorize.
“Memorization just comes naturally for me,” Cogley said. “I suppose, like anything, it just takes practice. Also, I constantly use memorization tricks.”
For those of us who do not have such great memory skills, Tarantino suggests students use the resources that are available to them, like the new UT Center for Public Speaking, located in the Macdonald–Kelce Library in AV1.
The center is a place where you can go and get help with any assignment that is speech related.
For more information, contact Coats at acoats@ut.edu or go to http://www.ut.edu/speakingcenter.
Laurel Sanchez can be reached at laurel.sanchez1@gmail.com.