Born and raised in the state of Texas, the University Interscholastic League (UIL) plays a big part in all schools. It is a good way to showcase the brains of the student body. 

This organization puts on academic, athletic, and fine art competitions for highschool students. It’s a strong way for students to display their skills and compete with others. 

“UIL has just been an amazing thing for kids academically, they can get scholarships, they love to compete,” judge and number sense director Larry White said.

Competing with others is a healthy way for students to stimulate their brains and learn. It inspires students to want to do their best and push to succeed. It builds relationships and teaches students how to work well with others. In order to win they will prepare or do more than what is required, and that can carry into everyday life as well. 

“Kids gain so much from UIL activities,” White said.

Doing these competitions will also help students gain confidence and shake off the anxiety that comes with performing. 

“They have so much anxiety. And they don’t have that self confidence, but then you see them later and they have tremendous poise, they have confidence, they are ready to take on the world,” speech and debate director Jana Riggins said. 

High school can be tough when you don’t know where you belong. Participating in a UIL event helps many students find their people. As well as students grow close to the teachers who helped them along the way. UIL gives them someone to look up to.

“Kids are kids and they just want to know they have a place to belong, they want to know you care about them,” Riggins said.

Academic UIL covers a wide range of subjects such as math, science, language arts, social studies and more. Events that students can compete in are spelling, debate, journalism, number sense, computer science, etc.

“It has a very valuable lasting effect,” White said.

Throughout the process of being in a UIL competition students will go further than they may in a normal classroom. They learn more in depth about their chosen event, and UIL also prepares them for the world after highschool. 

“It is just a wonderful thing for our kids to have this approach to academics,” White said.

Graduating is a scary thing for most students and doing UIL speech and debate or congress can help better prepare you for it. It will help with building relationships and being able to talk to people.

“Speech and debate and Congress takes all of the skills and all the other speech events we coach, and puts them all together and adds that element of interpersonal communication,” Riggins said.

Knowing how to negotiate is an important skill to have in life. UIl teaches students how to learn soft and hard skills that will be helpful to have in the real world.  

“So that interpersonal connection is there,” Riggins said, “{and} all of those things go together to give students so many things that they will use later in life.”

In October of 2023 the Speech and Debate team went to a competition. Every student who competed gave it their all and did amazing, but a few of them excelled. 

Below are varsity debate students who competed and gained recognition at the Plano West Classic:

Kaden Carr- Senior: Policy Debate

Rex Ventura- Junior: Prose

Spoorthi Dyava- Sophomore: Policy Debate

Rekha Narne- Sophomore: Policy Debate

Avery Barrier- Senior: Extemporaneous Speaking

Danush Gade- Junior: Policy Debate

Sreemanth Tirumuladahuni- Sophomore: Lincoln-Douglas Debate

Aayan Kabir- Senior: Extemporaneous Speaking

Matthew Stevenson- Sophomore: Extemporaneous Speaking

Anika Maheshwari- Senior: Extemporaneous Speaking

More information about Rock Hill UIL.