Spelling Fail of the Century

I was on the speech team for all four years of high school. I know, I know-- I’m super cool. I did Informative, it is one of thirteen categories in speech: Creative Expression, Discussion, Drama, Duo Interpretation, Extemporaneous Reading, Extemporaneous Speaking, Great Speeches, Humorous, Informative, Original Oratory, Poetry, Prose, and Storytelling.

Creative Expression  

Discussion

 Drama

Duo Interpretation

Extemporaneous Reading

Extemporaneous Speaking

 Great Speeches

Humorous

Informative

Original Oratory

Prose

Poetry

And lastly,  Story Telling

Our speech team was excellent. We were all stars. And our team lived in harmony--Until my junior year of high school.

I ended the sophomore year season as the Sections Champion in Informative Speaking. I was a beast and my posters were bad ass. Seriously, my posters could eat the competition. I have a Ph.D in construction paper and a B.A. in Elmer’s glue so I am a god at making awesome posters. Plus, I am not shy in front of a crowd. And that may have helped with the whole speech thing. But I thank my posters for being so cool.

Anyhoodles, at the end of the sophomore year our coach retired and we got a new coach. The new coach was a bum. 

The Bum coach was a smoker, she was unorganized, she couldn’t speak publicly, and her filing folders were filled with Magic Cards. Bum Coach was in charge of all of us, but for every category in speech there is a specified coach who is the expert in that category and helps out. Somehow, Bum Coach was considered the “expert” in Informative Speaking. I was a sad panda.

I had a rough draft of a script and it needed some serious help. I had been working on a few puns to throw in my speech, because I am cool, and I had some poster ideas. I waited in the room for Bum Coach to come and I sat there. I sat there with my jokes, my script, my posters, and tripod just waiting for her to show up and after 30 minutes of waiting around she finally came.

I handed her the script and I stood there. She simply stared at my script as though she had never seen one before. And she waited. I don't know what she was waiting for but she kept looking at me waiting for something to happen. Like I was going to do a magic trick or something. It was super awkward.

It was the most unproductive speech practice ever.


We spent the bulk of our practice time talking about the collective team, what is expected in Informative Speaking, and she wanted to know everything about everyone--since she wasn't here the previous year. Apparently she wanted to know how well everyone had been doing.

Eventually, Bum Coach tells me she needs to go and I don't feel any better about my speech, but I was determined to meet with her again so that I could get this speech done quickly.


But often my determination takes the form of politely asking-- hoping if I am nice enough she’ll want to help me out. I just have to be really likeable. So I ask, “Excuse me, will you be free anytime tomorrow? I really need to get working on this speech and I need some advice so if it is alright with you—"


“Tomorrow I am busy, maybe you should try again on Friday”


Friday?! It was Monday and we have tournaments every Saturday morning till the end of the season. Friday was simply not going to cut it. I got some advice from other members of the team and I pulled a fairly presentable speech together. I worked like a busy little bee.

A few weeks into the season and I am not doing so bad. I haven’t made it to final rounds yet, but my scores are pretty good so there is still hope that I can come back and dominate the season.

Speech scores work like this:

There are three preliminary rounds. Each round has 8 speakers. All 8 speakers give their speeches and the judges let people know who was 1^st through 5^th in the round (they spare 6^th, 7^th, and 8^th place) Meaning 5^th-8^th place all get a 5 which is the worst score. So when you get your prelim scores back, you’ll see something like 1-4-3. Which means you did awesome you’re first round, you almost sucked in the second round, and third round you came back a little bit.

I was averaging a 3 and to make it to the final round, you need to do better.

Well, before the next tournament I practiced with several other speech coaches on the team. They were always happy to help and they listened to my speech and helped me improve it. After all of that, I am SO ready for the next tournament.

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The tournament comes, I finish the prelims, and I feel awesome. I dominated my rounds. I had a single round with three speeches on honey bees (I can’t imagine the judge appreciated that) Plus some kid knocked over his posters in my last round. The competition was mine.

The postings come up for the final round and I waited anxiously for my name to be displayed on the banner. All of us are cheering as other categories release their final round competitors. So far the team is doing really well. And then, the moment of truth, Informative speaking was releasing final scores.

Looking….looking…looking.

Drat… I didn’t make it.

My name was not on the banner. Oh well, I guess. Better luck next time. The final round was supposed to start for Informative in 5 minutes and normally I would go watch and scan for future competition, but this time I just wanted to be left alone. About ten minutes later, some other Info. Girl from another school comes to me.

What on earth? What did she call me? I was so confused. I ran up to the postings, looked up at the banner, and I didn’t see my name anywhere in sight—wait a second...

….Oh. My. God.

A pathetic misspelling of my name hung high on the poster. Nichkole was the second name. I don’t think there are many ways to misspell Nicole. I know some people spell it Nichole. Or even Nikole. But I was registered as Nichkole. And people pronounced it “Nitch-Kole”

Realizing the mistake, I quickly grabbed my posters, ran to 214A and I was really late to the round.

When it was all over I told my friends what had happened. They were all amused, worse mispronunciations have been formed for other people I know. My friends and I went over to the Award Ceremony, still talking about my ridiculous sounding name, and we figured it would correct itself in time.

Award ceremonies take FOREVER! Readers will see why when they scroll down. Former and current speechers/debaters are familiar with how award ceremonies go down.

Eventually, they announce the winners for informative. I get up onto the stage and the woman starts announcing the results.

"In 8^th Place, from some school, some person!" *CLAP!*

"In 7^th Place, from some school, some person!" *CLAP!*

"In 6^th Place, from some school, some person!" *CLAP!*

"In 5^th Place, from some school, some person!" *CLAP!*

"In 4^th Place, from some school, some person!" *CLAP!*

"In 3^rd Place, from some school, some person!" *CLAP!*

"And in 2^nd Place, from some school, some person!" *CLAP!*

As I was standing there thinking to myself, "HOORAY ME! I win! I am the most awesome speecher ever!" I hear:

Wait who? Oh right, me. My school laughed when she said my name because they all knew better. But standing in front of the entire auditorium with a name like Nichkole made me feel idiotic. I wanted to correct her, but what could I do? She had my shiny medal.

I later found out that Bum Coach registered me as Nichkole because she can’t spell. I tried to correct her several times but no luck, I was stuck being Nichkole. Throughout the remainder of the season I was Nichkole. And people from other schools, who didn’t know any better, would say things like:

  or

All of my awesome self esteem was being undermined by my foolish sounding name. This was the spelling fail of the century.

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After I graduated from high school, I shed my Nichkole identity and I finally lived my life as Nicole in the wonderful world of college.

It was one of the Info. Girls I competed against. We were at the same college, and now the same Spanish class. Just my luck. I explained to her the name mix up and she got a kick out of it. Now, most of my good college friends know the Nichkole story and how I led a double life throughout the speech season.

I still blame Bum Coach for ruining my name; she was replaced at the end of my senior year. And the speechers rejoiced.