Don't I know you?: Joe Faina

 by Greg Ralbovsky
 published on Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Sam Nalven / STATE PRESS MAGAZINE

In terms of college competitions, ASU sports are in the spotlight. But beyond the field, there is another team that competes almost every weekend to be the best.

Communications graduate student Joe Faina is a coach for the ASU Forensics Team. Made up only of undergraduates, the team travels to different universities during the year and members give speeches at a competitive level where judges rate their performance, information, and even their dress. Faina, a competitor when he was an undergraduate, is now is one of the coaches. He is also obsessed with Stephen Colbert and is taking his love to a new level.

SPM: Don't I know you?

Faina: Yeah. You took a class with me last fall.

SPM: Yes. What is your job as the forensics coach?

Faina: It's really intense one-on-one coaching and mentoring. I help work with the students who are on the team to make their speeches and performances as best as they can be.

SPM: How often do you guys travel?

Faina: Every weekend or every other weekend. There are several coaches, so it's not as if I'm going every weekend. It's pretty time consuming, but you know that going into it.

SPM: What are some interesting topics your team has done?

Faina: This year, there are students on the team who are doing speeches about a high school program in Virginia that teaches counter-terrorism skills to help students get into the counter-terrorism homeland security industry. There's a student doing a humorous speech on the implications of "gay-dar." One student is doing a literature performance using all different things around the idea of embarrassing moments. ASU has always had a good tradition of doing really creative stuff and doing it well.

SPM: Do you ever wish during your speech you could burst out into song and do jingles?

Faina: Well, who says that we don't? At a lot of events, it's all about letting the audience have a good time while still talking about interesting and important ideas.

SPM: Do you have fans with posters to cheer you on?

Faina: The people who compete support one another, but you'll get outside people coming to big national tournaments. When people perform examples in classrooms, they'll get recognized later on by other students.

SPM: Can you talk about your obsession with Stephen Colbert?

Faina: I'm a big humor guy. His show is interesting and not a lot of people have tried to study it in an academic way. He tried to run for president, things are getting named after him in the real world and it's just a crazy media frenzy, which I find hilarious. So, I decided to write my master's thesis on him, which I'm working on right now.

SPM: That must be a really cool thesis.

Faina: It's still a thesis, so it's still a lot of work that can get annoying. It's like a book report that's more than 100 pages. But, whenever I get stressed I think, "Wait, I have to watch video clips of 'The Colbert Report' and write about it. How bad can it be?"

— gralbovs@asu.edu