ton Speech Tournament, named after Laurence Norton, a professor who taught at Bradley from 1948-73. Photo provided by Bradley University Speech Team
The Bradley speech team hosted the 68th Annual L. E. Norton Memorial Collegiate Speech Tournament Nov. 7 and 8. The competition brought in 41 teams from 20 states spanning from Florida to California.
Over 500 alumni, coaches and students attended the event. All of the top 10 speech programs in the nation attended, including the top five: University of Nebraska-Omaha, University of Texas-Austin, Bradley, George Mason University and Western Kentucky University.
“[Norton] is the largest and most competitive collegiate tournament in the nation, which Bradley has the honor of hosting,” Ken Young, director of forensics, said. “We get to host all the teams and watch the competition happen.”
Since Bradley students were busy entertaining guests, they did not actually participate in the events. Instead, they served on committees to provide specific services for the tournament, including a judges’ lounge and ballot table.
“We don’t compete in the [tournament], so there aren’t nerves in that way,” Abby Surprenant, junior vice president of the speech team, said. “But it’s certainly a little nerve-wracking during the week of preparation to get everything to come together.”
Bradley has hosted the event for the past 68 years, Surprenant said. The speech team feels a lot of pressure to execute it well and meet the high expectations of teams across the country. Students spend the week before the tournament planning all aspects.
“People are in the GCC until midnight most nights of Norton prep week, but sometimes until 3 or 4 a.m. depending on what they’re working on,” sophomore speech team member Sarah Bujold said. “Many people do not realize the time it takes to put on a very elaborate tournament on the small budget that we pull it off in every year.”
Each year, the tournament chooses a theme to further engage competitors. This year’s theme was “Jurassic Park,” and past themes consisted of “Star Wars,” “Wonderful World of Disney” and “Hunger Games.”
“The competition can be very stressful given the size and prestige of the tournament, so the theme helps them remember that this should also be fun,” Young said. “‘Jurassic Park’ was chosen given the recent success of ‘Jurassic World.’”
The tournament was hosted in memory of Laurence E. Norton, a director of forensics and speech professor who taught at Bradley between 1948 to 1973. Norton is credited with inventing duo interpretation and informative speaking, two forensics events that are still used in competitions today.
“In college, there’s 11 different events ranging from interpretation events, which are more on the acting side, to limited prep and public address events, which are much more academic in nature,” Surprenant said. “At the Norton, there’s preliminary rounds and then semi-finals and finals.”
Bradley speech coaches handle the monetary aspects of the tournament, but students run everything else. Although it’s a lot of work, speech members said they believed the final product was worth it.
“When you’re hosting a tournament, you are concerned with everything that your guests need and running the tournament on time,” Bujold said. “I was excited to see over 400 of my fellow competitors and friends and to see everyone enjoy the results of what we worked so hard on.”
