Major Champion Interview with Lily Nellans (Part One)

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LilyLily Nellans competed for Des Moines Roosevelt High School In Iowa and holds the all-time record for major championship wins. She is the three-time winner of the MBA Extemp Round Robin and the Extemp Tournament of Champions (TOC). During her career she also won the NCFL National Championship and was a three-time finalist at the NSDA National Tournament. She’s a four time Iowa State Champion, won Extemp Central’s 2012 National Points Race, and she notched victories at Wake Forest, St.Marks, Florida Blue Key, The Glenbrooks, GMU Patriot Games, The Schwan’s Speech Spectacular and Harvard. She will be studying International Affairs at Western Kentucky University, where she will continue her extemp career.

Lily agreed to participate in a two part interview with Extemp Central to give her thoughts on extemporaneous speaking, her career, and the participation of women in high school extemp.

Thanks for sitting down for an interview with us, Lily, and congratulations on breaking the major championship record this season.

Thank you for the opportunity! It’s a little surreal, I’ve been reading Extemp Central’s interviews since I was 13.

How did you first get involved with extemporaneous speaking?

The NJFL National Tournament was held in Des Moines when I was in 8th grade. I’d been competing in public forum for a year at that point, but my coach (Harry Strong) told me I needed to compete in a speech event as well. I picked extemp because I’d seen the high school kids practicing it and it looked fun. I loved competing in extemp and ended up finishing 2nd. After that, I was hooked.

What was your first extemp speech on?  Was it any good?

I gave my first practice speech in the spring of 2010. The question was, “What issue should President Obama focus on next?” My answer was immigration, I guess President Obama didn’t listen. I thought it was a good speech, it was 6:41 so I was pretty proud of that.

When did you win your first tournament?  Any memories from that experience?

The first tournament I won was the international division of the Iowa state tournament my freshman year. Thanks to Billy Strong, who wrote the questions that year, my final round question was about 30 words long. I remember freaking out during prep and spending most of my time just trying to memorize the question. I was so surprised when I won, but I was also so excited.

What is your favorite source to cite?  Are there any obscure sources out there that you were found of?

Wow, this is like asking a parent to pick between their children. The Wall Street Journal was always “my source” on the Roosevelt team, I read and filed it every day, so it is definitely a favorite. The National Interest and Human Rights Watch always provided interesting insight. Citing the International Potato Center was one of my favorite things to do because I loved watching the expression on people’s faces. Though the IPC isn’t a particularly useful source. The Africa Report is a more obscure source that frequently came in handy.

What source(s) do you think extempers should cut more from?

I think extempers should cut more from local newspapers. They provide such great information on what’s going on in a political race or in a region of the world. They don’t necessarily have the reputation of the major newspapers, but they make up for it with first-hand knowledge.

What was your practice schedule like?  How did you practice?

Starting at the beginning of my sophomore year, I gave an extemp speech every single day that we had practice. I attribute a lot of my success to that regimen. We also had practice for four or five hours a day during winter break leading up to MBA. Strong always had lots of interesting and unique drills for me to do. My favorite drill was the “stop-and-start.” Sometimes it would take us two hours to get all the way through one speech. It made my “extemp muscles” ache in a good way.

What is the best extemporaneous speaking question that you ever drew?  What is the worst?

The best was by far and away, “Does the deal to end the NHL lockout do enough to help the player’s union?” I think the worst question I drew was, “ Should the US mandate marriage training?” It’s a tie with the time I drew a question asking me to predict the results of the 2012 Presidential Election, the weekend AFTER the election.

Give us your opinion on the Iowa extemp circuit.  Each state has its own unique pool of judges, tournaments, competitors, etc.  Do you think it helped prepare you for the national circuit?

I love the Iowa extemp circuit, it’s small, but mighty. In between all of the national circuit stops, I loved attending local tournaments. The competitors and judges are very similar to what you run into at a tournament like The Glenbrooks or Nationals because they come from a wide variety of backgrounds. So the feedback is a pretty good gauge of where you stand. Iowa also makes it easy to double or triple enter and I think my experience with OO and PF and even interp helped me tremendously in extemp.

What was the best advice you ever received in extemporaneous speaking?  Where did you get this advice?

The best advice I ever received in extemp came in the form of a series of questions after my final round at Wake Forest in 2011. I was a little surprise I placed 6th because I thought I had given a technically sound speech. But then Strong asked me, “Did you teach the audience anything? Was there anything special in your speech? Did you give them a reason to listen?” I realized that until the answers were yes, yes and yes I wasn’t going to be winning anything.

Not being able to choose yourself, who you do think was the most distinguished extemper on the national circuit this year?  Why?

There were so many notable extempers on the national circuit this year. A lot of people had their time to shine. I’m really lucky to count most of them amongst my closest friends, I could never choose.

Do any comments you have received on ballots over the years stand out to you (for good and bad reasons)?  If so, what are they?

I’ll always remember the judge who gave me a three and just wrote “you have the same name as my cat,” on the ballot. That just stands out for weird reasons. In one of my final rounds I received a ballot from a judge that gave me a 2 and the RFD was “the speaker I gave the 1 to had a deeper and more pleasing voice.” The speaker that judge gave the 1 to was a guy. That comment stood out for bad reasons. In a verbal critique at MBA, Max Webster, told me I needed to have a moment in every speech that showed how excited I was to be there. That was a really good piece of feedback

You had quite the amazing run on the national circuit over the last several years, which included three MBA championships, three TOC titles, and a CFL national championship in 2012.  This helped you break the major championship record this May.  Were you aware of that record and does it mean much to you?

I first heard about the Grand Slam and the major championship record after I won TOC my sophomore year. I actually read about it in an Extemp Central article. My coach had asked me during the summer before my sophomore year what my goal was in extemp and I said my goal was to be the best extemper ever. It was silly and idealistic at that point, I had no right to be setting that as my goal. But I spent that summer and the next three years working my butt off. After I read about the record, breaking it became the way I could meet my goal. Strong reminded me of that goal every time I got discouraged or worn out and it kept me going. The strongest feeling I had after winning TOC this year was relief that I’d finally accomplished my career goal.

What was your favorite national circuit tournament to attend?  Why?

The Glenbrooks has always been my favorite national circuit tournament. It was the first circuit tournament I ever broke at so it’s always had a special place in my heart. It also always seems so glamorous and impressive to me. There are so many big competitors everywhere and the final rounds of every event are amazing. Not to mention that the questions are great, even in prelims.

As someone who won three of the four major tournaments and made three consecutive NSDA finals, you are very aware of their different nuances.  How would you rank the four majors in terms of importance to you and what makes them so different?

MBA has always been the most important tournament to me. It’s the tournament where luck plays the smallest role. It’s important to me because the purest extemp speeches are rewarded. Winning it feels like being knighted by the kings and queens of extemp. That’s how good the judging pool is. After MBA, TOC was the most important to me for much of the same reason. It’s an extemp tournament for extempers and the judges are amazing! Things like canned intros and shallow analysis don’t fly at MBA or TOC.

NSDA Nationals is the tournament that I would guess most extempers would list as the most important. I understand why and it’s very important to me too. The reason NSDA’s is farther down my list is because so much of NSDA’s is about luck. You have to have the right questions, the right judges and the right pairings. So many deserving and talented extempers drop way too early at Nationals. The variability of the tournament forced me to realize that it either happens for you or it doesn’t at Nationals, and there isn’t much you can do to change your National’s destiny. I also feel like sometimes extemp that isn’t true extemp gets rewarded, I’m looking at you canned intros and long speeches.

NCFLs was always one of my favorite tournaments to attend. It was always held in such fun cities! The reason that it’s at the bottom of my list is a combination of the same reasons I ranked Nationals lower and the fact that Iowa doesn’t have a CFL league. It’s definitely the most “speechy” and least analysis-driven tournament of the four.

Check back  tomorrow for part 2 of this  interview.

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