The speech and debate team at Western High School is determined to push forward to championships after their coach was arrested. NBC6’s Ari Odzer reports
Imagine being on the high school debate team, you’ve worked hard to qualify for the national championship event, but you can’t go because your debate coach has been arrested.
What an awful feeling, and the members of the Western High School speech and debate team are feeling it in the pits of their stomachs.
They had a choice, to surrender or fight back, and the kids weren’t about to give up on going to nationals.
‘I was just like you know what, I’m fed up, I’ll create a personal GoFundMe and hopefully, people will donate and our team will be able to go to nationals,” said team member Layla Khoury, who set up a GoFundMe page seeking $16,000, enough to pay for the seven team members who qualified to go to the national championships in Iowa in June.
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“And all of my teammates who are so deserving and talented and brilliant, who have fought their way to make it that national stage, deserve the right to do that,” said Mariam Kolley, a senior on the team.
“It just shows the resilience of these children, they work hard and they aren’t just doing it for themselves, they’re doing it for their teammates as well,” said Erica Hansinger, who has been the team’s assistant coach for years.
She said she worked closely with former coach Dario Camara and was stunned when police arrested him in February. Camara was beloved and trusted by the team members. Police charged him with failing to pay $16,000 to caterers for speech and debate events. Hansinger said they then realized the team was left with no money in its account and a feeling of betrayal.
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“This activity is such a sanctuary for people, and knowing that has been endangered and threatened because of selfishness, it’s really upsetting,” Kolley said. “It definitely does feel like a stab in the back, we’re so determined that we’re gonna get through it.”
Adversity has brought them together, tighter than ever.
“And even in the short time that I’ve been in this role, I’ve seen these kids act as a team more than I have any other debate team and I’m really, really proud of them,” said the team’s new coach, Brian Lynne, who is an alumnus of the school and the speech and debate team.
The kids have a message to the community and to anyone considering making a donation.
“I think it’s really important to contribute because we were incredibly betrayed by someone we trusted a lot and to think that we don’t have the funds to compete anymore because of something he did is really upsetting,” said senior Emily Hueller.
As of Wednesday, they’ve raised nearly $5,000. If you want to help the team reach its destination, visit the GoFundMe page here.
