By: Matthew Seeger, Talon Staff
The Tallahassee Community College Forensics Team participated in their first forensics tournament of the month, the 2018 FCSAA State Tournament, on the TCC campus. The event took place Feb. 1 – 3 in the CH and EN buildings.
The previous week, Jan 27, the team went to Gainesville for another tournament.
Several team members also caught the flu at the tournament.
TCC Forensics coach John Schultz kept their weekly training session brief, to keep his team in top form for the competition.
Team captain Susan Liss knew some of the competitors from Gainesville would be present again this weekend. Liss assumed they might have also gotten sick.
“On the other hand, we’re all performers, so we all just power through it,” said Liss. “I don’t think anyone being ill will have any effect on how we all perform.”
Jesselym Gonzalez is a varsity team member with a background in theater. She says forensics gives students the opportunity to tug at an audience’s heartstrings and challenges the team members by prompting them to give a more sincere, personal, and less theatrical performance.
“You’re in touch with the audience,” Gonzalez said. “You’re in front of them, and the emotion is just so much more vibrant than it’d be if you were further away.”
A love of performing is an attitude shared by actors and non-actors alike in Forensics, and that attitude pays off, as seen by the team’s impressive winning streak.
TCC has brought home the National Team Sweepstakes Award every year for 17 years in a row.
That’s the second longest streak of any junior college in the nation, according to Coach Schultz.
This tournament was no different. In an email after the tournament, Liss said everyone on the team gave very passionate and well-rehearsed performances, which helped TCC bring home the gold.
“A ton of the awards went to us,” Liss said, “including the first place overall award and most of the first place ones.”
Next up for TCC Forensics is the state championship in Miami, which takes place on Feb 23 – 25.
