At 5-foot-4 and 135 pounds, Kenneth Go is not the most obvious blue-chip NFL prospect.
Yet, the recent Damien Memorial School graduate is quick on his feet, unflappable and positively Manningesque in read-and-react situations.
And when the league in question — the National Speech and Debate Association, formerly the National Forensic League — represents the finest in interscholastic rhetorical competition and not professional football (Not Freaking Likely), Go’s upside is all the more obvious.
"I like impromptu speaking," says Go, who recently returned from the National Speech & Debate Tournament in Dallas. "I like counterarguing and using logic to make my points. I tend to think outside the box."
Go is the second youngest of five children born to a pair of immigrants from the Philippines. When his father died in 2008, his mother continued to support the family by operating a elder-care facility from the family’s Salt Lake home.
Like his high-achieving siblings, Go made sure his mother’s labors weren’t squandered. Part of the last all-male class at Damien, Go spent four years in student government, serving as class president and vice president and later as student body president. He was also active in campus ministry programs and the school’s Leo Club.
Further, Go participated in a Center for Tomorrow’s Leaders program in which he collaborated with other students to form Fahrenheit73, a student-led nonprofit organization that raised more than $20,000 to purchase air-conditioning units for Campbell High School.
As a freshman, Go was recruited by English instructor Philip Balmores to join Damien’s speech and debate club.
"I was really nervous at first," Go recalls. "There were others who were so much smarter and more talented, but I kept at it and learned as I went along."
In Dallas this month, Go found his rhetorical abilities mightily tested as he competed for the first time in world debate, the unpredictable, fast-paced style of verbal argument often associated with European parliamentary debate.
"We were competing against other states and countries. We had to rely on quick thinking. We had to be logical and persuasive while being attentive to what it was we were trying to solve. It was really challenging."
The challenges will continue this fall when Go, who gained rare early acceptance to the John A. Burns School of Medicine, enters his first year of college.
"I’ve been lucky to have had a lot of opportunities to try different things," Go says. "Sometimes people wonder if I have too much on my plate, but when you truly love what you’re doing, you want to pour your heart into it."
