Academic Athletes

Trenae Alexander, Staff Writer
April 28, 2011
Filed under News

To most people, the only real test of academic ability is competing against other academically inclined students from all over the state to see who is deemed most intelligent by a judge. While most people never take this challenge, three students will be able to.

Seniors Darrian Carroll, Jaquala Wade and junior Connie Xavier competed in the regional competition for Academics and all qualified to go to Austin for the state tournament on May 5th, 6th, and 7th, with Hasan Sumdani going as an alternate. All the competitors will be participating in the event that they placed in. Carrol will be competiting in Informative Speaking and Headline Writing. Wade will be in the Editorial Writing and Headline Writing, and Xavier will be competing in Ready Writing.

“I think they will do well, the fact that they advanced to state at all is already awesome,” Michelle Showers UIL sponsor said.

Most people get eliminated i the early rounds so Carrol, Wade, and Xavier are taking this very seriously. Wade placed first for Editorial Writing, giving her a boost of confidence for the state meet.

“I think I did pretty good but I was shocked to see that they thought it was amazing. I have participated in different events but this year I only did district and regional,” Wade said.

Each student works closely  with certain teachers in order to be prepped for the event. Showers, Mr. Adams, Lyndsey Simmons and Tiffany Sherman have all helped to be prepare the academic athletes. Sherman, who did not accompany them to the regional meet, worked closely with Carrol on his debate skills. He did more than enough to make it to the state tournament but still feels like there is room to improve.

“I feel I could have done a lot better at the Lincoln-Douglass debate and I know I should have done better in informative. Lincoln-Douglass should have been easy because it is just two speakers arguing over a set topic,” Carrol said.

With all there recent accomplishments, the students are expected to do as well as they did in the regional tournament. Xavier, Carrol, Wade, and Sumdani have been studying and practicing their events relentlessly as the state tournament approaches. May 5, 6, and 7 are going to big days for these kids and all of Summit as well. Four students from Summit, will be testing their knowledge against hundreds of others from all over the state. It’s a big challenge, and these are the best of the best.