L.A.’s Marshall High Leads Academic Decathlon

John Marshall High School of Los Angeles took a strong lead Saturday in the U.S. Academic Decathlon--the nation’s intellectual Olympics for high schoolers.

With scores in six of the 10 events announced, the Los Feliz-Silver Lake-area school had a strong hold on first place with 29,778 points out of a possible 36,000.

Ranked next with 26,408 points was John Foster Dulles High School of Sugar Land, Tex.; and in third place was Shaker Heights High School of Shaker Heights, Ohio, with 25,872 points.

Final results are to be announced Monday. At stake is a bevy of trophies and scholarships, plus a trip to the White House.

Marshall took first place in the Super Quiz, a tense and boisterous round robin and the only competition of the weekend held before a public audience.

Out of 30 difficult questions on constitutional law, the Los Angeles school got 24 correct.

Wayland High School from Wayland, Mass., placed second in the Super Quiz, with 22 right answers.

David Tokofsky, Marshall’s 26-year-old coach, appeared ecstatic after the Super Quiz victory. But he said he was too worried about the still-to-be scored literature essays to predict clinching the national title.

“Sure, we’re optimistic,” agreed Marshall’s principal, Don Hahn, “but we’re not counting our chickens yet.”

This is the first time Los Angeles has been represented in the national contest. And until this year, no team from Los Angeles had ever won the California academic decathlon.

Marshall came into the nationals with a few things in its favor. State tests were the same throughout the nation, and Marshall’s winning score last month was much higher than those in any of the other 38 participating states. Also, several powerhouse teams, including Richardson, Tex., which had been national champ for the last three years, lost at their state finals.

Less statistical, but perhaps as important, team members say, Marshall has the scrappiness of an ethnically mixed, inner-city school in a contest often dominated by wealthy, suburban districts. That is what made the state victory over Beverly Hills and Palo Alto so sweet.

Three of the team’s nine competing members were not born in the United States. Many come from families who are counting on loans and scholarships to get their wunderkinds through college.

Ethan McKinney said that some of his teammates are wary about being showboated as a symbol of Los Angeles public education. But, he added: “The school is proud of what we’ve accomplished. Marshall shows the system is working.”

Tokofsky was afraid that the squad’s hip, Los Angeles styles and predominantly liberal views might hurt their scores in the speech and interview sections of the test. Those are judged by Texas teachers. So, all the Marshall team dressed very conservatively and several boys got short haircuts this week. David Florey even took off his gold earring.

‘People Have Hang-Ups’

“I don’t want to jeopardize anything just because other people have hang-ups about physical appearance,” Florey said.

A switch in rooms caused a last-minute crisis until Gideon Javier, one of two juniors on the team, located his dressy black shoes and was able to avoid wearing sneakers with his suit. However, Javier continued to clutch a towel to dry his sweating palms before his speech.

Participation counts as a credit course at Marshall, but it takes up so many nights and weekends that some of the students’ other grades have slipped. Luckily for the seniors, that slump came after grade transcripts had been mailed to colleges.

All the students said the decathlon effort has been worthwhile.

“It made me realize that if I completely devote myself to something, I can succeed,” Matthew Elstein said.

‘Icing on the Cake’

Stephanie Shelton, one of two girls competing on the team, said: “We’ll be disappointed if we lose, but what we’ve been through has been pretty amazing. Winning would be just the icing on the cake.”

The cake’s main ingredients, the students said, are learning and friendships. They credit Tokofsky--a bearded, intense man who wears jeans, work shirts and sneakers to school--with pushing them to success. Several said they want to follow in his footsteps and become a teacher.

Assistant coach Ann Choi-Rho said some of the youngsters used not to do their best in school, fearing that they would be branded as brainy nerds. “Tokofsky has given these kids the strength to know that there is nothing wrong about feeling passionate about learning,” she said.

Tokofsky, however, said he is thinking about quitting teaching. “I see many of my college friends earning double and triple my salary,” he said. Tokofsky said he will earn $21,000 this year.

Three Categories

All the decathlon teams are supposed to have A, B and C students, based on their report cards from last year. C-grade students may be brilliant but simply bored in regular classes.

However, there are concerns that some students may keep their grades low to earn a team spot. Ben Wolf, one of Marshall’s B-grade competitors, felt so strongly about the issue that he made it the topic of his speech, even at the risk of antagonizing organizers of the decathlon.

The decathlon began in California as an Orange County competition in 1968, went statewide in 1979 and is now six years old as an annual national event.

The members of the Marshall team are: Javier and McKinney in the A category; Wolf and Elstein in the B group, Christopher Nichelson and David Florey in the C group; Silva Darbinian, Howard Wu and Shelton as alternates in each respective group. Susie Kim and David Chan were members of the team who came to Dallas to help but did not compete.