Northwestern’s growing speech team has a track record that speaks for itself.

In 2000, the 7-year-old team won the national championships in the impromptu and extemporaneous categories, which involve unscripted speaking.

“That success began to put Northwestern on the map, and we’ve been building ever since,” said communication studies lecturer Rick Roe, who has coached the team for five years.

The speech team returned late Saturday night from a Ball State University competition after placing seventh out of 26 teams.

Weinberg sophomore Gabe Gutierrez and Weinberg junior Brant Ullery placed first in the dramatic duo category.

“We are not really known for our dramatic events, so we are very happy to have won,” Roe said. “It kind of balances (our team) out.”

At Illinois State University the previous weekend, the team took third place out of about 15 teams and defeated the high-ranked Arizona State University team.

Team members are motivated by this year’s successful beginning.

Communication junior Ivan Chen said he is “perfectly optimistic that (the team) will triumph over how well we did last year.”

Chen said he has a lot of speech team experience, but the club is open to any interested and dedicated undergraduates.

“We don’t have a lot of novices this year,” Roe said. “That worries me a bit in terms of building the program for future years.”

The team’s 10 to 15 members meet Monday nights to discuss current events, plan upcoming competitions and schedule practices for the week.

Communication junior Jason Warren, the extemporaneous and impromptu speech team captain, said the team is like a family.

“We practice together, we spend our weekends together, we eat together, we hang out together and we care about each other a great deal,” he said.

The team participates in three basic categories: limited preparation, which includes impromptu and extemporaneous speaking; public address, and interpretation of literature, which includes dramatic duo.

Warren, who competes in limited preparation and public address, said he takes two to five days to write a speech.

Even once a speech is written, he said, it constantly is revised based on changes in the topic and recommended revisions from competition judges.

The team competes almost every weekend from October through April. This year they will compete across the country in cities such as Boston, San Diego and Austin, Texas.

This year’s team is more experienced than it has been in the past, Roe said. Speakers choose to compete year after year for a variety of reasons.

“The activity itself is a great training ground for just about any profession, and I think that the national networking, such as (making) friends and contacts across the country, is a big motivator for people,” Roe said. “Plus, we have a really good time — we’re like our own little fraternity or sorority.”

Chen, who plans to attend law school, said he gains career preparation from his speech experience. Warren said he hopes to be a college speech coach, but that he will have strong speaking skills if he ends up being a professor or lecturer.

“I’ve always believed that speech is life, the rest is just details,” Warren said. “I love it. It is my life.”