Episode 33: Adam Sharples Brooks

Adam Sharples Brooks loves helping people impact others. He discovered speech in high school and won a national championship in Prose and earn second place in Poetry. He went on to compete at Bradley University where he would win a national title in Prose at NFA in 2008 and was a national finalist in Prose, Duo, and Poetry as well as a team sweepstakes title. He coached briefly at Bradley University helping the team earn a team title in 2010 and The University of Alabama where he earned his PhD in Communication. Adam left the activity in 2013 and become an assistant professor at UA, Director of the public speaking course and founder of UA’s speaking center The Speaking Studio. Since then Adam has led workshops with hundreds of organizations and businesses to train their talent in presentation and communication skills. He recently published his first book Engineered to Speak: Helping You Create and Deliver Presentations to help those with STEM backgrounds communicate to nontechnical audiences. He continues to use his skills he first developed in speech unironically on TikTok and in life.

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In this episode, Robert and Adam discuss the terror of joining a legendary team when they have expectations, the nuances of winning Prose, and do a full breakdown of one of the greatest interps to ever grace a final round (complete with 30 seconds of silence).  Listen for free through Apple Podcasts, GooglePlay, Overcast, Podbean, Spotify, iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to podcasts.

One part old man, one part child, one part Irish… all interprer.