Stand Up, Speak Up

CHATFIELD — “You wake up early on a Saturday morning to do for fun what most people are scared to do their whole lives.” I heard this quote for the first time over thirty years ago on a school bus in the middle of winter, before my first ever speech meet.

My coach, Dave Stadum, said it every Saturday, along with a pep talk to the team, which consisted of scared little seventh graders (such as myself, that day) all the way up to—what appeared to be—cool, confident seniors.

Now I say it to my students before every meet, from the first Saturday in February through State speech in April. And even though I’ve repeated it more times than I can count, it still hits me every time, because peering back at me over the tops of the green bus seats are all these bright eyes really doing something brave, when they could still be curled up in bed, and I am so proud of them.

Chatfield Speech Team up bright and early, ready to hit the road for a competition. (Photo provided by Rachel Shieffelbein)

Whether they’re giving a speech they wrote on a topic they care about, or interpreting someone else’s words in a dramatic category, or a humorous one, they’re putting themselves out there. They’re being vulnerable, and emotional. They’re speaking about things that are important to them.

They are also being silly and bringing levity to the world when it feels heavy. And they’re creating a community where others can do those things too, and people will listen. 

Speech changes lives

I competed in speech for six years—four of those years as part of a Duo team with Stephanie Copeman, who now coaches the Chatfield Speech Team beside me. I was a shy kid and if my friend, Melissa, hadn’t pulled me down the hallways to join, I can’t imagine I ever would have. 

I have coached Speech at Chatfield Public Schools for 25 years. I started as an assistant coach next to Sharon Hrstka, who had been one of my coaches in high school and became the head coach over ten years ago. Stephanie joined me a couple years later and now we’re co-head coaches. 

I have a lot of hobbies and interests, but I’ve often said speech is the one thing I could never give up.

What does a speech coach do?

There are thirteen different categories in speech, and our first job as a coach is to help each student find the right category for them. That means not only finding out their strengths as performers, but also finding out what their interests are, what they’re passionate about. Because whether they’re writing the speech or performing someone else’s, the more they connect with the piece the better.

The process of finding a category and a piece starts, for our new students, in early January. It’s not uncommon for our more experienced kids to have been searching for a piece since last season. 

Once a piece is selected, practices begin. They get up in front of Stephanie and me — and read.

More often than not, for those just joining us, the first month is spent working on things like speaking up, slowing down and making eye contact. Because being quiet, racing through the words and keeping your eyes locked on your paper are all things people do when they’re nervous. And, for the most part, they’re all nervous. 

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, 75% of people listed public speaking as their biggest fear. So, do these kids who join speech just not have that fear? Not exactly. They’re still nervous, they’re just brave enough to try. 

People often assume speech and theater kids are outgoing by nature. Sometimes that’s true, but it’s just as common for them to be the shy, introverted kids. I can’t really claim to know why that is, but perhaps it’s because they have something to say and they just need a safe place to say it.

Setting goals: Don’t pass out

Many years ago, I had a student pass out at his first meet. He got up there, at the front of the classroom, in front of the judge and the six or so other kids who would perform in that room, and he passed out.

Kelly, the head coach at the time, and I were nervous he wouldn’t come back, but he did. And every Saturday when I asked how he was doing he’d say, “I didn’t pass out.” 

It still makes me grin, just to think about it. 

Rushford-Peterson Speech Tournament in 2024. All six finalists in the Prose category were Chatfield students. (Photo provided by Rachel Shieffelbein)

Seven years ago, I had another seventh grader join the team who couldn’t even look at me during practice; I made him nervous. So, I let him practice in front of me, but facing the wall. Last year he was the Storytelling State Champion.

I tell the kids all the time that speech is about long-term goals. This year we work on facing forward and not passing out. We can fine tune later. 

Not all the kids come in quite that nervous, but the point is the same—it takes years to build these skills and it’s rare that a seventh grader can come in and be competitive against seniors.

And that’s who they’re competing against; speech doesn’t split up into age groups. So they have to come in and work really hard, knowing it could take years to see big rewards for that work. In the meantime, we focus on the small rewards. 

That could mean placing a little higher in a round, it could mean not having a single judge’s critique say, “slow down.” It could mean just feeling more confident. Hopefully those small victories tide them over until they get the bigger ones. 

We’ve shared sad tears with kids who don’t move on to Sections or State, and happy tears with kids who have. All of them live in my memory because they all worked hard, set their egos and insecurities aside, and spoke up.

Chatfield 2025 Speech Team at a recent tournament in Red Wing, Minn. (Photo by Rachel Shieffelbein)

Building community and nurturing empathy

It’s not an easy thing to stand up in front of other people and lay out all your emotions for everyone to see. That’s something people don’t always realize. Even if it’s acting, if you’re good at it, the emotions are real. 

These kids are putting themselves into other people’s shoes and really trying to feel what that person is going through. Which is why I think speech has the amazing community it does. It’s filled with people well trained in empathy.

Students come together from all these different schools to compete, and believe me, they can be competitive, but they also have a lot of respect for each other, and what they’re doing.

I’ve seen kids from other schools become close friends. They cheer on their teammates, and their competition. Same goes for the coaches. We talk with each other about our students, and we judge each other’s kids, and we watch them all grow and get better year after year. 

And then we watch them go out into the world and do amazing things. They get up early on a Saturday morning to do what most people are scared to do their whole lives, and then they get off the bus and go out into the world and make it a better place.