Helping lead the Blanchet Speech & Debate team in his fourth year of competition, Senior Erik Nielsen looks to place a personal best in the state tournament this season, as well as help bring as many of his teammates to the tournament with him as possible as well. Following a 15th place finish in the state tournament last season and an experience at the national tournament, his goals for this season and the milestones he is looking are remarkable, but far from unattainable. Not only is Erik striving to leave his mark on the program by virtue of personal accolades, he is helping to set up the Blanchet speech & debate program for continuing success in the future upon his departure. I had the chance to sit down with Erik and reflect on his time involved with the program as well as get insight into goals that he has for both himself and the team.

Q: How long have you been a participant in speech and debate competitions for?

A: “I’ve been doing it for 4 years of high school, since freshman year. Before then I did it for 2 years in 4th and 5th grade, I was on kind of a very low key speech and debate club at my old school. We did compete and I was partnered with my twin brother and we slayed the competition. That inspired me, my middle school didn’t have that, but it inspired me to keep going and try to pursue that in high school.”

Q: So you didn’t let your passion for it go away even though you experienced a lapse where there were no opportunities to compete?

A: “No, cause I found success in it and I’ve never really had a lot of success in sports, I thought that would be interesting and it was really fun when I did it, back then and I didn’t have that in middle school, so I wanted to try it out in high school and it worked out pretty well.”

Q: How long have you been involved with the program at Blanchet. What made you want to join the Blanchet team?

A: “It was mainly because of that previous experience in Speech & Debate in middle school. I kind of knew that I had a little bit of a knack for it. I had always been kind of outgoing as far as being able to speak my mind in a public manner before then, but definitely the 4th and 5th grade experience influenced my decision to join freshman year, and once I joined freshman year I had a really good time and I had some great success’ that spurred me on to keep going and I’ve been doing it since then.

Q: What have been some of your biggest accomplishments during your tenure with the Blanchet team, both individually and the team as a whole?

A: “Individually I’d say my 2 biggest accomplishments were competing at state last year and then qualifying for the national tournament in Dallas. At State I placed 15th overall in my division and at nationals I was able to make it to the semifinals round, which put me in the top 60 in my division in the entire nation, which was really special for me and it was a great experience. As a team one of the things that I’m really proud of is how we’ve been able to have long lasting success in the sense that even though seniors have graduated, we maintained a really strong team and win lots of competitions.

Q: What are some personal and team goals that you have for this season?

A: “This year I am striving to get a much higher spot in state. I definitely feel like I could have done better last year, it was just kind of a ruff tournament for me in the sense that I just didn’t quite put my best foot forward at the state tournament. I’d love to make it back to nationals again, I think that’s something I can strive to do, but it is very difficult and it’s a one time qualification event so if you mess things up than your not going, which is okay and I understand that, but I had the experience last year and I’d certainly like to do it again. As a team I want to see as many people as possible go to state, competing at state is our end goal competition and so having as many of our team members there as possible would be really great.

Q: Being a senior this year, do you see yourself as adopting a leadership role on the team? What do think this will require of you?

A: Absolutely. I was co-captain last year and now I’m the only captain this year and this year I’ve had to step up a lot because for our coach, Mr. Laton, this is his first run at coaching the Blanchet team, or any speech and debate team for that matter. So I’ve had to really step I and make sure that we’re all on the same page because not only am I kind of coaching my teammates, but I’m also kind of making sure that he’s all good to go. Thus far he’s been really great and is very very smart and he’s doing great stuff for our program and that’s making me really look forward to the future years, maybe I can come back and help out as a college student, but as a senior this year I’ve definitely had to step up a little more.

Q: What aspect of competing for Blanchet do you think you’ll miss the most when your tenure with Blanchet comes to an end at the end of this season?

A: Well I think honestly the thing I’m gonna miss the most is gonna be the event that I do because it’s really not offered at any college or collegiate level. I do student congress debate, which is where you have a big packet full of fake bills that students across the state have written and they go to tournaments and they decide what they’re gonna talk about and then they debate on those specific topics. Those aren’t available and a lot of the high school level debates are not the same as they are in college, so even if I were to pursue it in college which I don’t know if I’m going to do it’s going to be a lot different competition. The collegiate level is appealing to me in the sense that it’s a lot more travel across the country and I’m considering it, but I will end up depending on what institution I decide to go to, but it’s not necessarily one of the things that I’m looking at with my decision making process for college. I hope that I can find other ways to express my debate desires in college if I don’t join a debate team because I found that even the short time between seasons I start getting in more debates with my friends about politics because I just don’t have that outlet for something that I’m so passionate about. So I think I’m definitely gonna just miss the outlet, but also miss the specific event that I do.