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Arel Rende competed for Booker T. Washington High School in Tulsa, OK for three years. He was a four-time Oklahoma Class 6A State Champion, winning three championships in DX and one in OO. He was a two-time NSDA National Champion in United States Extemporaneous Speaking (2013 and 2014), winning the final round at NSDA Nationals in each of those years. Last season, Arel won the St. Mark’s Heart of Texas Invitational, the University of Texas Longhorn Classic, and the Harvard National Invitational. He was also a participant in the 2014 MBA Exhibition Round and the 2014 Extemporaneous Speaking Tournament of Champions (TOC) final round. This fall, Arel will be studying finance at The University of Texas-Austin and competing on their speech them.
Arel agreed to do an interview with Extemp Central to reflect on his career and provide advice to young extempers. Part one of this interview can be found here.
You sort of flew under the radar to win your first USX national championship last season. How did this year’s season compare with last year’s? Did you feel more pressure or were you more comfortable knowing that you had already won the season’s largest tournament?
My Junior year nationals was kind of surreal. My personal goal was to make semifinals, so when I finaled I was super excited just to be there. Winning didn’t even enter my mind until I was sitting backstage at awards. I also didn’t really understand that scale of what I had done until I traveled the circuit my Senior year and saw just how large and dedicated this community is. This year there wasn’t pressure on me, but I was a lot more aware of everything going on around me. I was also more confident because I improved significantly from 2013 to 2014. All throughout the year people asked me if I was going to repeat, and the honest answer was “I don’t know” just of how massive nationals is, but I’m glad it worked out.
Going into this year’s NSDA Nationals, who did you think would be your greatest competition in USX?
Obviously with all 6 finalists returning along with several other out rounders coming back, everyone who broke to wednesday could very well have won the tournament. But I thought my greatest competition would be someone who came out of the blue like I did last year. USX was a stacked event this year, but despite the big names in the event there’s always a chance of someone else winning.
This year you became the first extemper to win back-to-back final round championships at NSDA Nationals. What do you think enabled you to win the final round in consecutive years?
One thing that always trips up extempers in the final round is nerves. With OO and Interp, you know exactly what to say and what to do, but in extemp there’s always some element of surprise, which can be frightening. And those nerves were there my Junior year. Luckily I got over them quickly. That experience from last year helped me this year to calm down and give the best speech I could in finals. Obviously there is a bit of luck involved as well: drawing the right question, making the right jokes, and getting the right judges, but showing up and doing your best in finals is something that is important for any competitor at a high level. I was also a little bit lucky in that I was sixth speaker both years, so I had an opportunity to go on stage to cross examine the first speaker, get over the nerves, and then give my speech already knowing how it is to be on stage.
Entering the final round at this year’s NSDA Nationals, you were trailing. Did you have any idea where you might relative to other competitors?
I had no idea. I felt really good about my Octofinal and Quarterfinal speeches, but both of my semi final speeches were just lacking in something. So I wasn’t too confident going into the final round in terms of placing. Then again I always acknowledged I could be in 1st or 6th. I ignored my place and just spoke in finals, which helped considerably.
Aside from your national wins, what tournament wins that you had this season or in previous years will you most fondly remember?
I’ll bring up two wins. The first one was my 2012 NFL District tournament. I came out of nowhere to win the tournament. I was a novice at the beginning of the year and I hadn’t won a tournament all semester. There were several experienced seniors at the tournament but something just clicked. That was when I realized I could this event at a high level. More recently, winning Harvard was probably my most proud accomplishment aside from NFLs. I do DX primarily, and FX is definitely something that I needed some work in. So winning an FX-heavy tournament like Harvard with such a distinguished talent pool was an amazing experience.
Which tournament that you attended in your career was your favorite?
Also the Harvard tournament. I had the opportunity to attend twice and both times were super fun. Not only was the tournament well run, but I spent a week with some of my best friends in Boston. My senior year was considerably more fun because I had more rounds, did better than my junior year, and also the group that I was with was great.
Explain your experience at the MBA Extemp Round Robin this season. Did you enjoy the tournament? Do you have any advice for competitors attending next year’s competition?
I wasn’t aware of the MBA RR until late in my Junior year, so when I received the invitation I didn’t really know what I was getting into. The experience was very tiring. I flew in from Canada to Tulsa back from my winter vacation and left for Nashville 12 hours later. I gave those first two speeches on three hours of sleep (which could probably be seen in my ranks). But aside from the quick turnaround the tournament was super fun. The questions were well written, the judges were top notch, as was the competition. With that small of a pool, everyone talks to each other and it’s a great environment. My advice for the competitors would be to ask your judges for critiques after each round. Chances are, judges will judge you more than once with that small of a pool, and knowing exactly what they were looking for is really helpful. I received a lot of 1-1-4 and 1-2-4 ranks at MBA and I feel like those could’ve been avoided if I had spoken with the judges more.
What do you feel were your unique strengths in extemporaneous speaking? What were your weaknesses? What is the biggest hurdle that you had to overcome to be a successful speaker?
I feel like my strengths were in explaining complicated ideas and events in a simple manner as to where everyone could understand. My biggest weaknesses, other than a lack of knowledge with certain foreign issues, were definitely with trying to bite off more than I could chew in 7 minutes. I always tried to go for the home run speech on obscure topics but there were lot of situations when that just crashed the burned. The biggest hurdle I had to overcome to become a successful speaker was a delivery hurdle. Come NFLs 2013, I had practiced so much that my baseline speech was consistently above average, so even if I didn’t have an excellent file or knowledge base, I could always rely on delivery to at least get a 3 in a tough round. Consistency is what most tournaments test, and I worked to become consistent. I joked often that I would very rarely get ranked first. At Harvard this year, I didn’t even get a 1st place ballot after the octafinal round. But straight 2’s is often times just as good.
If a younger competitor asked you for advice in how to improve in the event, what would you tell them?
Read everything. Everything. Nothing can replace contextual knowledge. Good extempers tell you statistics and events. Great extempers explain how the statistics and events they’re telling you fit into a broader context and actually impact the topic. You can’t fake in-depth knowledge and even if you don’t have the greatest files just knowing simple information does you a lot of good.
If you could make a rule change to extemporaneous speaking what would it be? Or would you change anything at all?
After my experiences at MBA I would allow internet in draw. At the RR, internet was allowed and it gave us access to the most recent information. However, while you can search for daily and weekly articles very quickly, it was difficult to get in depth sources and journals in that time span. So even with the internet, teams would still have to file, however pouring over the New York Times for hours catching every article would be a waste of time, and more time could be spent researching and reading in depth and nuanced arguments on topics, which I think helps extemp both as an educational tool and as a competitive activity.
If you could do one round or tournament all over again in your career, what would it be and why?
This might sound a little cocky but I wouldn’t do any tournament over again. Every setback I had motivated me to do better and practice more. I doubt that I would have won Nationals my Junior year if I hadn’t had a disappointing first semester. As for one round, I would love to take back Round 12 of NSDA 2014. Semifinal round. Packed room. I’m giving a speech on a question about GMOs and the question was maybe 25 words long. In my introduction I blanked on the question, made it up, and messed up a key operative phrase. I corrected myself, but two judges gave me last in that round, and I know it’s because I messed up the question. I’ve made a bunch of mistakes over the past three years, but that one was the one I stressed out over the most.
Are there any Oklahoma extempers that national circuit observers should keep their eyes on for 2014-2015?
There is one competitor that people should be looking out for next year, and that’s Patrick Wilson from Booker T. Washington HS. He’s yet to make it far at any circuit tournament, but this is his senior year and I think he’ll break out of his shell. He struggles with keeping his extreme liberal bias out of his speeches, but I do think he’ll win a lot of tournaments this year.
What are your future plans? Do you plan on maintaining a link with the high school circuit?
I am attending the University of Texas at Austin, where I will be studying business and competing on their speech team. As I will still be exempting for the next four years, I will have some link with the high school circuit, especially down in Texas. College speech is different from high school, but I’m sure it will be a great experience.