Some stood by themselves, flipping through papers and casually uttering words under their breath.
A few sat on the ground with a thousand-yard stare while others practiced their arguments and speeches aloud.
About 2,000 high school students competed Friday through Sunday at Florida Blue Key's 25th annual Speech & Debate Tournament at UF.
About 90 high schools from 14 states competed in the tournament.
The school that traveled the farthest was from Pittsburgh, Pa., said William Shwayri, tournament chairman and UF student.
Angela Weber, forensics coach for the Dreyfoos School of the Arts in Palm Beach, said the tournament helps students come out of their shell.
"They get hooked," Weber said. "It becomes almost addictive."
There are about 1,000 other regional, state and national competitive speech tournaments during the year, Shwayri said.
UF Blue Key is the only completely student-run tournament and is the fourth largest in the nation. Each participant paid $40 to compete, but most teams raised money to attend each event.
Students compete in various formats throughout the weekend, including extemporaneous speech, which covers both domestic and international issues.
"We get here at 7 a.m. and leave at 10 at night," Weber said. "When they get back to the hotels, they're researching more and practicing their speeches. So it's a tremendous dedication on behalf of teenagers."
In the interpretive acting events, students improvise, act and even mime their way through rounds, taking pieces of literature or contemporary media and transforming it into a 10-minute work of hilarity.
"It's fun to see how good you get at performing," said Sarah Butcher, 18, a senior from Jupiter High School in Palm Beach County. "A lot of it is how good you are with taking something and going with it, whether it's impromptu speaking or acting."
Weber said most students perform comfortably when speaking under the scrutiny of judges.
"It will give them an advantage when it comes to competing in the job market and for college," she said.
Speech and debate competitors have a very high percentage of four-year attendance at universities, higher than any other high school activity at a rate of about 98 percent, Shwayri said.
"The beauty of this tournament is that it's a huge recruiting event for the University of Florida," he said. "Out of 2,000 students that attend, usually about 400 of them will be accepted to UF. When you consider the fact that in any given year, a UF entering class has 8,000 students and 5 percent compete in this tournament, then it's pretty significant."
