Speech coach Jenny Cook calls program a gem, credits support of parents and administrators

“In coaching and in the classroom, I really appreciate the support I get from administrators, other faculty and parents,” says Jenny Cook, history faculty member and coach of the Speech and Debate Team with Debbie Simon and Patrice Jean-Baptiste ’88 (performing arts). “I don’t feel like people here put up roadblocks. I have the freedom to make choices that benefit my students.”

When not teaching U.S. History and Current Event & Public Speaking, Jenny spends much of her time on the upper floor of the Kellner Performing Arts Center, where students known on campus as “speechies” gather. Jenny says that one of the remarkable things about the 100 students on the team—aside from their regularly bringing home trophies from state and national speech and debate tournaments—is that their dedication to the art of public speaking does not eclipse talents and interests in other areas, or their connections to other groups. “You find these same students active in theater and in leadership positions of student groups all over campus,” Jenny says.

Another reason Jenny admires her students is their support of each other. Rather than fierce competition within the group, Jenny compares their form to graceful, and powerful, flight: “The students are like geese flying in a ‘V’’ formation. They fly farther and harder with the momentum of the group. If one falls out of formation, the others help, and they rise together as a group. At these tournaments, that’s what we see.

“Together, they are spectacular. They take risks and love their close-knit group—they even have special traditions: Captains hand down talismans that have been collected from the previous captains, such as an old Nutri-grain breakfast bar, and each year the captains add new items. These items usually accompany the team to every tournament for luck.

“I started debating in high school,” Jenny explains—but her original career ambitions were not to become a coach. “I’m good at arguing, so I thought I wanted to be a lawyer. When I was in college, I was the assistant speech and debate coach at Apple Valley High School in Minnesota,” she says.

“When I was a senior at Hamline University, I was at a crossroads. I had studied political science and communications. My coaching mentor [at Apple Valley] said, ‘The coaching community needs you.’ So I dropped the bomb on my advisors and told them I wasn’t going to law school after all. Instead, I scrambled to get in enough social studies classes so that I could teach. I went to the University of Minnesota for licensure and a master’s.”

Jenny coached at Hopkins High School in Minnetonka, Minnesota, for five years and taught in the social studies department there. She planned to spend her career there. Then, says Jenny, “ I met Randy Cox [former Milton coach] at a national tournament, and he announced that he had just bought land in Austin, Texas. He would be leaving Milton, and might I be interested in the job.

“The minute I walked on campus, I was hooked. Even my principal [in Minnesota] said I couldn’t pass up such an opportunity. He knew Milton’s reputation.” Five years later, Jenny says she never regretted leaving her Midwestern roots. Her students’ bold successes keep her energized, she says.

“Getting up there [in front of the audience] is really amazing,” Jenny says. “Memorizing your piece is an accomplishment. But when you’re at one of the country’s most competitive tournaments at Yale University, and three of the final six speakers in the Extemporaneous category are from Milton, you know that your students are remarkable.”

Jenny also appreciated Commencement 2003 at Milton when the team’s Olympic-level skill was very publicly acknowledged. “It was awesome when President Clinton spoke at graduation,” Jenny says. “He’s a former debater, and he began his speech by highlighting the success of our program.

“The value of speech and debate as a life skill is something no one argues with,” Jenny says. “The longer I work here, the more I feel like anything is possible.”