Sports are at the forefront of American culture and are a regular part of the everyday lives of countless kids growing up. Whether it’s playing, watching or following them, they dictate a lot about someone’s personality.
What is the true definition of a sport? A quick Google search brings you this definition: “an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment.”
When considering an athlete, you think of the largest, fastest and strongest individuals, but some of the best athletes are those that have the ability to effectively communicate with their coaches or teammates.
Camila Trimberger-Ruiz (bottom right) is an example of one of the elite athletes in a non-traditional sport, operating as a forensics star growing up in her hometown of Sheboygan, Wisconsin.
So what is forensics?
“Everyone assumes that I’m cutting up dead bodies and stuff, but it is not forensic science. It’s now called the National Speech and Debate Association, but it is the academic sport of competitive talking and speech giving,” Trimberger-Ruiz said.
The keyword there is the idea of it being a competition. Whether it’s Novak Djokovic versus Rafael Nadal in singles tennis or the Dallas Cowboys taking on the New York Giants, sports are easily boiled down to the essence of competition, something Camila loved about forensics.
Forensic competitions are broken into different categories. Ranging from cross-examination, extemporaneous speaking (either informative or persuasive) and interpretation (prose or poetry), amongst others.
“In Wisconsin, we have 20 different categories of speech. When I was in high school, I competed in storytelling, humorous interpretation, duo interpretation and also OIL, which stands for oral interpretation of literature,” explained Camila, “Humorous interpretation was the one that I was most passionate about, because that’s one that exists on the national level. For example, it’s a ten minute category and you have to take a published script and perform. No costume, no props, no nothing.”
In each of her individual categories, she was expected to go out in front of a panel of judges and an audience and perform for them. Trimberger-Ruiz compared the performances she does, especially the acting categories, to that of gymnastics. She has a routine that she’s executing live, using her body and voice in creative ways to entertain and impress those watching.
“I like doing the ones where I’m entertaining the audience. How do I convey this message in the most creative, yet succinct way possible? I’m ranked against other people and there’s points involved,” Trimberger-Ruiz said.
Just like any other sport, practice leads to better results, using techniques like memorization and repetition Camila can best her opponents. Looking at the script of the act she’s performing, Trimberger-Ruiz has to study, just like any point guard does their plays or any golfer has to examine the course they’re playing on.
That being said, a forensics athlete still needs to be able to improvise and think on their toes, adapting to the audience or circumstances, something that all the best quarterbacks like Patrick Mahomes and Aaron Rodgers are praised for in the NFL.
Additionally, forensics requires an athlete to travel the state and even the country for competitions, which is very similar to what a “traditional” sport would require of them. Camila has left the state on many occasions to perform, heading into uncharted territory.
If breaking a sweat is the bar to clear to being considered an athlete, Trimberger-Ruiz offered up one very specific moment in her forensics career.
“I remember a particularly disgusting story. My junior year, I was in the final round at state for humorous interpretation. It was like 300 people in a room, which was at that point, the largest crowd I had ever performed in front of. People were laughing because it’s a humorous category. I didn’t know how to pause and had to keep the humor going. I was so out of breath and sweaty and almost passed out at the end. I bleached my blazer white from how bad I was sweating, which is kind of yucky, but whatever,” Trimberger-Ruiz chuckled.
Taking all of her experiences into consideration, Camila doesn’t see much of a difference between a forensics athlete and the more commonly recognized athletes of “regular” sports.
“You get teamwork skills, you get communication skills. You learn how to deal with loss and how to deal with wins with grace and stuff like that, too. You know, there’s a lot of people, I’m sure, that appreciate doing things like football for similar reasons,” Camila explained.
At the end of her time at Sheboygan South High School, Trimberger-Ruiz (bottom left) finished in third place at the state forensics competition and later was a top-80 finalist in the country at the National Speech and Debate Association (NSDA) national tournament to conclude her senior year.
After her high school forensics career came to an end, she remained involved as a judge of the competitions, something she still does today. On top of that, she has taken a more coach-like role for some of the younger classes.
“During COVID, I would have students from my high school send me videos of their performances and I would leave a page and a half of critiques, giving suggestions like change your hand gesture from this to this and very specific little things like that. It is like coaching, you know, I tell them what to switch around, like reword this paragraph or elaborate more on this thing. It’s fair to say I coach them,” Trimberger-Ruiz said.
Now a junior at UW-Madison, Trimberger-Ruiz has put her forensics skills to good use. She joined WSUM 91.7FM Madison, the university’s student radio station in 2020, working her way up from a member, to News Director, and now Station Manager in her limited time.
She even gives credit to some unheralded teenage boys for making her well-suited to manage the radio station.
“I learned so much from 14 year old boys that were just freaks at a category, like best NPR voice, because they can switch voices and they do the commercial breaks and it’s so good. That’s how I really learned how to do my job at WSUM,” Camila reflected.
Overall, whether or not forensics is considered a sport, there’s no denying that Trimberger-Ruiz was a top athlete in her own right, developing life-long skills just like any other athlete.