Lyle Wiley inducted into Speech and Debate Hall of Fame

Hot Springs County High School's Lyle Wiley was inducted to the annual Wyoming Speech & Debate Hall of Fame during their Coaches Convention held at Hot Springs Hotel on September 22.

"I was really surprised. I was very humbled. This is my 10th year coaching right now, but it is pretty uncommon for someone to be voted into this to get this award without having coached for a really long time. A lot of the coaches get the award after they've been coaching for 15, 20 years, so it was really surprising. I didn't expect it. I was really honored. I was really emotional at the actual conference. Speech and debate is a community that's really important to me and I put a lot of energy into it. I really believe in the mission of speech and debate for kids," said Wiley

Wiley continued and said, "As an English teacher, it's not just something that I do on the side that isn't connected to the things that I do as a teacher. It's integrated completely. I feel like the mission of speech and debate provide opportunities and skills to kids that are almost a better way to teach kids those skills than the English classroom because they buy into it because they put themselves into something for them. They get presentation skills, speaking skills, communication skills, networking possibilities, research skills, the ability to think on your feet, communication skills with other people in a context that's meaningful because they're trying to do something they care about. They get an opportunity to talk for 10 minutes about anything they want over and over and over. Students get to actually share the way that they feel about the world or if they have an advocacy, they want to try to push, or if they care deeply about anything. It's just a really cool spot for high schoolers to actually be able to share what they think and believe about something. It's like it's kind of a beautiful thing. So I'm excited to be a part of the community. The community has been really great to me."

The Wyoming Coaches Association presents this award to one coach a year, who may only receive this award once in his/her career. Thus, this is a "Hall of Fame" Award. Selection is made by nominations/votes of past recipients who are still active or have been within the past four years. This doesn't always mean that they are still a coach but that they are still involved, such as in judging at, traveling to tournaments, assisting in hosting tournaments, attending the fall conference, traveling and judging at NSDA nationals, etc.

Induction into the WHSFA Hall of Fame recognizes coaches and other individuals who have fundamentally enhanced high school speech and debate within the state of Wyoming, have demonstrated immense dedication to speech students and coaches and have had a substantial positive impact on the Wyoming Speech and Debate Community. The credibility of the award has its roots in the credibility and experience of the voting members, who, in having been recipients of this award, have been chosen in the past for having demonstrated these same characteristics in their careers."

Wiley previously taught in Torrington for four years and this year is his sixth year of coaching in Thermopolis.

Wiley explained his roots as a coach in Torrington and said, "I started with no knowledge of anything that has to do with teaching debate. I was totally a green coach. I was asked by students about the possibility of restarting a program that had died. The coach had left, and it was dormant for three to four years. Torrington had lost their charter and everything. And so it was like brand new and I was brand new. I had no idea what was going on. I was going into this thing with all these events, with no knowledge, with the group of kids. I was not really sure how I felt about a lot of it, but right away I recognized how life-changing it can be for students, how impactful it could be for students, and how it could be impactful for me too because I got to see students in a context that allowed them to pursue things academically, but in a way that was so much more meaningful to them than schoolwork."