Mr. Leonardi Interview

Our school’s speech and debate program has been flourishing and growing rapidly in the last few years. Mr. Leonardi is the high school chemistry teacher and he is the head coach for debate. So, we have decided to interview him about the speech and debate team. Some of the responses have been edited for clarity.

Jyothisree: What inspired you to start a speech and debate program at our school?

Mr. Leonardi: That’s an easy answer- when I started working here ten years ago or whatever it was, one of the first years we had seniors and Senior Research Projects. I went to watch the senior research projects and some of our seniors had the most fascinating research opportunities. They were working with really smart people but then when they gave their presentations, the presentation was kind of a hot mess. It’s great to be super smart and intelligent and learn things, but if you can’t be articulate and express that in a way that other people can understand, it just doesn’t mean as much. As we don’t have a public speaking course here at the school it’s kind of important that we have an activity so kids can develop their skills.

J: Recently the school won third at the Jackrabbit Jamboree tournament, so in your opinion what do you think has made the team so successful?

L: It is the students on the team and the way that the team is structured. There are a lot of people on the team, over a hundred students this year. But, there are also a lot of captains like our juniors and seniors […]. You know I don’t have time to coach everybody […]. It’s the fact that you know the older students take on leadership roles and help the younger students that really has lent to the strength of our team increasing so much.

J: What do you think is the main reason the club was able to expand and get over a hundred in like a short amount of time?

L: It’s because I don’t know how to quit. Because, like I want to bring speech and debate to the largest possible subsection of BASIS Peoria. Because again, I think it’s a crime that we don’t have a public speaking course. So I’ve been very organized and, like I said, it’s about bringing in help from the students and creating a self-sustaining system where the older kids help the younger kids. And I think that helps build team cohesiveness. Also, the other thing that helps is the use of shared transportation. Like taking the bus to and from tournaments. It would be a lot harder to sell speech and debate if parents had to drive their kids down to Mesa every third weekend and then pick them up in the middle of the night. So, having that shared transportation element builds the team as a whole comradery. I think that’s been pretty key to the growth of the team as well.

J: Do you have any memories of the speech and debate team that really stick out to you?

L: I have so many memories in the speech and debate team that stick out to me like the first tournament that we ever won, which was maybe four or five years ago. I remember that because that was something that we worked hard to get toward. I remember the first time we qualified kids for the national tournament which was about 6 years ago because that was kind of a surprise. I remember going to the national tournament in Texas three years ago before covid came and kinda wrecked everything. On that front, I remember students who have competed and won scholarships. We’ve won over ten thousand dollars in rotary scholarships over the last few years. It’s just there are so many, it’s hard to pick one but that’s a list of some of the big ones.

J: What would you say to any eighth graders looking to join speech and debate?

L: I would tell them they should join speech and debate, but you’re talking to the coach so I hope I will say that. I think it helps people learn how to use their voice. When I was growing up, speech was a required course to graduate, and it is a shame that BASIS does not do that and it should do that. But in the absence of that, the club can help kids develop skills there really not getting anywhere else within BASIS. Being able to talk to people and express yourself and share your opinions is so crucial to anybody. So I would accurately encourage eighth-graders to join and learn what speech is about to help them develop as individuals.

J: How did the pandemic specifically affect speech and debate?

L: It sucked so much because like last season everything went online. Speech in particular online was really hard because speech is all about the interaction with the audience and the reaction your audience has and stuff like that. So it was really difficult for speech students to perform online all last year. One of the reasons we are back in person this year is because social interaction is so important. So we took all the necessary precautions and we got our speech and debate kids back into the community and that face to face is one of the things that is most important about speech and debate. Online speech and debate is really really challenging. We did it to keep the team going but it’s not something that would be sustainable long term.

J: What is your favorite part of having in-person speech tournaments now that we are back in person?

L: It’s that building of comradery again. It’s being able to meet students from different schools from all over the valley. Students that have different experiences than we do learn from them and interact with them and form relationships with them and kind of bring our whole community together as a whole. It is just so critical to the social development of our students and our society as a whole. So that has been one of the bright spots of this year for all the ups and downs we’ve had with restrictions and omicron and everything else. The fact that we’ve been able to safely continue speech and debate tournaments in person has been a huge net benefit to our students.

J: Our school held the fourth annual scorpion spectacular alongside Mountain Ridge, and it was very successful, so what would you say goes into hosting a successful tournament?

L: Every time I finish hosting a tournament I’m like “why did I do this? This is so hard.” It’s really hard, its logistics, it’s a lot of planning, a lot of timing, and a lot of just trying to juggle seven different chain saws at once. It really is about planning and getting stuff done ahead of time. And being able to delegate not only to my assistant coaches and to the other coaches from other schools who were helping me, but also delegating to the team captains. And they’re helping with the food, the hospitality, the ballots, and everything it really takes. It probably takes about a city to run a speech and debate tournament. It’s just a lot of planning and paying attention to details. So much about what we do is attention to detail.

J: What would you (as a coach) consider is the most difficult part of doing speech and debate as a BASIS student?

L: In terms of workload, speech and debate certainly adds work to your workload but like it’s a different type of work. It’s something that you’re not doing in your other classes. You’re not going to get really good at something unless you put effort into it. Academics always come first. Any of my students will tell you that I do grade checks all the time and if kids do not have good grades they don’t get to participate in speech and debate. So most students, over ninety percent of students never run into any academic issues. Is it a balancing act? Yes, it’s a balancing act but you know what life is. It’s about choosing your priorities and what’s most important and what you need to focus on so that you’re successful.

J: Now what do you prefer, speech or debate?

L: They’re the same thing. I love all my children equally. Why do people ask me that, it’s that speech and debate are two different things under the same banner, but they both teach different values. Debates teach a lot of valuable critical thinking skills, thinking on your feet being able to respond to things rapidly. Speech is more about using your own voice and being able to communicate those feelings and emotions to others. They’re both really important and really valuable.

Am I a better speech coach than a debate coach? Yes, that’s my personality, that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy debate any less. That’s one of the reasons that it’s so important to have captains that are good at what they do. I know enough to coach debate. Am I a stellar debate coach? No, but I know how to ask for help and how to get people to give us the skills that we need. But, I like them both equally.

J: Thank you.