SPRINGDALE, Ark. — Burgeoning legal minds with the Springdale Har-Ber High School mock trial team are headed to nationals across the country next week after a very successful season.
The mock trial team is heading to Delaware after winning the state competition last month. Coach Joel Brown says his team has had to hit the ground running on preparations ever since.
“We had six to eight months to get the state case ready. For this case, we only have six weeks to do the same thing. So we've been practicing basically four to five times a week for a few hours a day," Brown said.
Brown said he's never seen a group prepare like this team has.
“These kids don't have any downtime, they're in the classroom working on our timeline. They are reading affidavits. Two of them just got back from a tournament in Kentucky for debate, and they literally sat on the bus, Zoomed in and read through the entire case over and over again, so they could work on their directions and crosses," Brown explained.
The team says all the work is worth it to compete at the highest level.
“I think we put up to 250 hours just in this one extracurricular alone, with multiple, like outside practices and spending weekends on Zoom. So it feels very rewarding, just kind of knowing that we're going to nationals," said Carlos Pacheco, a member of the mock trial team.
The mock trial team's experience doesn't just teach them about what it would be like in a courtroom, but also how to work as a team.
“I learned a lot about teamwork, not trial. There's eight people on our team and there's no one who works as an individual. Everybody has to collaborate in order to get the job done," team member Nora Shitandi said.
“I think it's helped me a lot with just speaking to people and as well as just general common sense or social skills as well as, you know, you're gonna have to talk in front of people your whole life. So that's a very important skill to know," senior team member Mason Wait said.
Because of the hours the team put into this, they've become a family.
“For us, we've been at it for many long nights. We've been at school until 10:30 p.m., for five plus hours, just running at it again, like we've seen, our emotions at the highest but also at the lowest. We've been there for each other on bad days and good days. And I think that it's really like a second family that we've created," Pacheco said.
Brown says seeing his team grow makes all of this worth it.
“Being able to see them realize that they have the ability to do it. It's probably the most amazing thing. The knowledge is great, but really building their capacity to be like a productive member of a team is pretty awesome," Brown said.
The team will head to Delaware next Wednesday and compete from May 2 to May 5.
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