ECC fares well against Ivy League in mock trial contest
Most of their competitors are 18 to 22 years old and study at 4-year colleges and universities. But members of Elgin Community College's mock trial ensemble range from 22 to a 60-something.
And this weekend, they took on the young bucks in a tournament at Brandeis University, competing against their hosts, Boston College and two teams from Brown University.
“There were a lot of good teams there,” said Jennifer Rieger, ECC's team captain and the youngest on the team. “They're all 4-year universities that have had most of their members around for three or four years.”
Most of ECC's members are in their first year of staging mock trials.
Despite those obstacles, the ECC team won one of its trials, tied one and lost two to the two Brown teams.
Not a bad performance, but the ECC team hoped to better last year's performance when they beat Yale at a tournament at Harvard University.
“Coming here and competing against the caliber teams we were competing against, it was a good experience over all,” said Ronald Kowalczyk, the mock trial coach and ECC paralegal professor.
Three ECC students playing mock witnesses earned nominations for awards as did everyone acting as attorneys. The team couldn't stick around to find out who won, though, because of an early flight back to Chicago.
Angela Scheufler, 38, participated in her first mock trial tournament, as a defense attorney in a mock products liability case. In it, a 2-year-old child swallowed “Princess Beads” and died. The toy company had to defend its product while the boy's family claimed the presence on the beads of GHB, a date-rape drug, ultimately caused his death.
Scheufler said the age diversity on the team is an advantage for ECC, especially when they call “witnesses.”
“We have a couple of ladies on the team a little older than I am,” Scheufler said. “They are the best expert witnesses. Not just because of their age but they really know their stuff and have a lot of experience.”
Still, because ECC is among the few community colleges in national competition, Scheufler said, “We get a lot of surprised looks.”