Taft Students Hope Team’s Victory Will Rub Off on Them

Students at Taft High School prepared Monday for a string of celebrations to revel in the school’s victory in the U.S. Academic Decathlon, overjoyed not only for their brainy classmates, but because they expect the honor to rub off on them in the competition to get into college.

“It’s going to help when we apply to colleges,” said junior Elisa Miller, who holds the student government office of director of school spirit. She plans to apply to fashion merchandising programs at the University of Arizona and Syracuse University.

“They’ll say, ‘She was part of Taft High School.’ They’ll know now where I go to school.”

“It will really prove to colleges that when you earn a grade at Taft, it’s really a grade. There are no easy A’s here,” student body President Josh Stenger said as he rearranged the red letters on the school marquee at the corner of Ventura Boulevard and Winnetka Avenue.

New Message

The messages touting a blood drive and Cinco De Mayo celebration gave way to:

“CONGRATULATIONS DECATHLON NATIONAL CHAMPIONS.”

Students whooped, hollered “Alllll Riiiight” and clapped when, just after the lunch bell, Assistant Principal Patricia White announced over the public address system that Taft had defeated 38 other schools to win the decathlon in Rhode Island.

White had waited all morning for a long-distance call from Principal Ronald Berz, who accompanied the team. “I just had the feeling we were going to win this year,” she said, and after Taft won the nationally televised Super Quiz on Saturday, the contest’s final event, “it made that feeling stronger.”

Stenger, a friend of many of the decathlon members, said the victory was a relief because “they wanted it so much.”

“I’m looking forward to hearing their tales of success,” Stenger said.

Well-Rounded Students

“They’re much more socially well-rounded than people think,” he said of the team members, noting that they include a varsity basketball player, drama student and student government leader.

“You can’t just call them nerds, because they aren’t. They all have other things to offer.”

Junior Chris Allen was staffing the switchboard, which buzzed with calls from parents and reporters. Allen, who transferred to Taft this year from a Granada Hills school, said: “It’s kind of cool to come to a school where they’re into studying that much.

“People are really into their work. . . . It’s easier to learn here.”

The band, drill team, cheerleaders, student government leaders and selected students will take two buses to LAX today to greet the champions when they step off American Airlines Flight 275 at 4:54 p.m. “We want to let them know how proud we are of them--we appreciate the hard work they put in,” said Stenger, who hopes the school will hold a banquet for the team members and their parents.

Airport Welcome

Among the airport greeters will be seniors Jesus Abellaneda and Maribel Aragon, who ride a bus a half an hour every morning from outside the Valley to get to Taft. They do not know any of the decathlon members but accepted White’s invitation to go to LAX, because, Aragon said, “we’re proud of our school.”

“It goes to show we’re the smartest school,” Abellaneda said. “We can tell our kids that we went to that famous school that won the decathlon.”

A rally is planned for Friday, White said. She said that Mayor Tom Bradley called to say he would visit the school this week to congratulate the team.

Several underclassmen were not as enthusiastic about the news. They did not know the team members and, being further from college applications, did not feel a personal stake in the victory.

Others were not surprised because, they said, Taft has always been strong in academics and because it came in second in the decathlon last year.

No Surprise

“I wasn’t surprised because they wanted it badly enough to win it,” said English teacher Nina Pashley, who has taught several of the team members in her 11th-grade honors class in American literature and composition. The team’s coach, Arthur Berchin, “goes for breadth and depth” and the students “are committed and have good rapport with the coach,” she said.

“I was hoping for it, but also expecting it.”

Senior Seyong Cho said her parents--who read about the team in a bilingual Korean-English newspaper last year--will probably be more thrilled than she is. “They were really excited and said, ‘Oh, I wish you were on the decathlon team.’ ”

She was more blase.

“We’ve always been number one. We’re used to it,” she said. “If we came in fourth or fifth, then we would talk about it.”

THE WINNERS

Story of the victory. Page 1.