There’s an underlying running joke in sports commentary communities that LeBron is actually coaching the Cavaliers now, anyway. Players of his and Kobe’s stature often become as integral to the coaching process as the coaches themselves do.

Jayne*

How many times has the sixth-place speaker in both extemps the year prior gone on to win the state title the next?

The speech’s biggest flaw came when judges and observers alike were left guessing as to who the subject of the speech, an Israeli politician seen as a rival to Netanyahu, actually was. An impressive cross-exing of Liang’s difficult-to-critique speech set the round off well.

Speaking first has its advantages and disadvantages. Setting the tone for the round, Liang gave a speech on Turkey’s relationship with China and the United States that took on quite the nuanced examination of global foreign policy. Without a memorable laugh-out-loud moment like Kost’s, though, some judges wouldn’t be faulted if six speakers later, some of the speech was lost on them.

Whoever wrote the final round questions deserves a round of applause for the question she chose. “Are Western leaders directly responsible for the instability in the Middle East?” is one of the more hard-hitting questions I can remember from an Ohio final round. The cross-ex that elicited Podugu to respond something along the lines of “I’m sorry if you couldn’t catch my sarcasm” was another highlight of the round.

Speaking sixth in the round, Kost fared much better than last year’s sixth speaker (me, fifth). When a speech begins with a meta joke, the response essentially sets the tone for the rest of the round. The room-wide laughter indicated a favorable panel to the combination of humor and the round’s best analysis shown in the speech. The only flaw in the performance came during his cross-ex of Kan, where he never brought up the lack of explanation of who Kan’s question was truly about. A minimal oversight in an otherwise tremendous performance.

2014 was an uncharacteristically diverse round for Ohio IX finals. That was the only year other than 2011 since at least 2008 where no school had more than one speaker in the finals. Solon joins Jackson and Cardinal-Mooney as the only other schools to do so in that time.