Riverton High School Speech and Debate Coach Becca Pierson is all about building perseverance and grit in her competitors while at the same time finding ways to give them feelings of affirmation and inclusion in a team community. She brought her creative mind to the pod to talk about some of her methods to build team cohesion and show students that their hard work and dedication matter.
Becca Pierson is no stranger to working through struggle and overcoming obstacles to find success. Her own competitive debate journey mirrors the work-in-progress, growth-through-hard-work stories of many of our debaters over the course of their competitive careers. And the most important trait Becca wants to instill in her students is the ability to bounce back and never give up.
Becca has been coaching at Riverton for six years. She is also an educator with a Masters Degree in Secondary Education with a certification in comprehensive Social Studies and At Risk Students. She fell in love with CX Debate as a high school competitor and qualified for the National Tournament in CX twice. This year, she received the 3A Wyoming Coach of the Year Award.
Becca brings a fiery growth mindset to her own coaching. She is thoughtful in her approaches and willing to try many different ways to connect her competitors to success and build team unity. In Becca's conversation with me on the One Clap Pod, she shared some of her clever insight and explained some of the different ways she tries to engage debaters in healthy practice. She brings her own brand of fun to her coaching style, creating mini-contests with silly prizes and encouraging her debaters to never give up in round (even if that means telling a knock-knock joke in questioning). We also discussed ways to try to handle tragedies in the school and team community and the power of collaborating with the surrounding coaching community.
Thank you, Becca, for all your hard work in our coaching community and for coming on the One Clap Podcast to share your ideas!