No Debating Their Dedication

Clenching his facial muscles and bending his knees, 18-year-old Jeffrey Diner can go from playing a Montana teen who fantasizes about being a rap star to an enraged middle-age doctor accused of hitting a patient.

Diner, a senior at Grover Cleveland High School, is taking his performance to Cambridge, Mass. He and about 50 members of the forensic team hope to bolster their national profile Friday in their first-ever appearance at a tournament hosted by Harvard University.

“It’s pretty intimidating, but I’m pumped to compete,” Diner said Tuesday after he performed in three different “voices from urban reality” as teammates and coaches looked on. “I’m ready to show the East Coast what things are like in the West.”

After arriving today in New York, the team will spend two days touring the city and seeing Broadway shows. A chartered bus will then deliver the team to the Harvard campus, where students will compete for three days against rivals from hundreds of high schools.

Coached by drama teacher Sarah Rosenberg, Cleveland’s team has become a regional forensic powerhouse in the last decade. Last year, the school ranked highest in Southern California and placed third in the state. Several Cleveland students went on to compete nationally.

Students said attending the Harvard High School Forensics Tournament instead of a similar event this weekend at UC Berkeley would allow them to size up potential competitors from Eastern states and grab the attention of judges.

“It’s good to make your name before you get to nationals,” said Leslie-Anne Huff, a junior.

The costs of the trip are substantial. Fees from a tournament the team hosted in December and proceeds from an auction of donated goods helped raise money. Students are also chipping in $350 to $700 each to pay the bills, assistant coach Ryan Knowles said.

The team is counting on a student production of “West Side Story” to cover the costs of statewide competitions this spring because it does not receive school funding, Knowles said.

Although Huff’s one-woman performance featuring a foulmouthed Santa Claus and several disgruntled reindeer employees had teammates chuckling, forensic competition is not all comedy.

In the debate competition this weekend, students will attack and defend the proposition that “violent juvenile offenders ought to be treated as adults in the criminal justice system.” Teams must be ready to take either side in the debate and are expected to quote outside authorities, including political philosophers and policy experts.

In the extemporaneous speech competition, students will be judged on their answers to a question on national or international affairs. They are given only a few minutes to read outside articles on the subject.

Cleveland senior Victor Silva, an extemporaneous competitor, said he has been clipping articles from three weekly newsmagazines and several foreign-policy journals to prepare.

Most of the team members enroll each year in Rosenberg’s for-credit drama class. They sacrifice dozens of additional hours staying after school and coming in on weekends for practice while keeping up with daily assignments in other subjects.

Because they are missing four days of school, some Cleveland juniors plan to spend their plane trip catching up on missed assignments, Huff said.

“But when you love something that much, it’s worth it,” she said. “You just learn to balance.”