El Camino Real Wins Decathlon’s Super Quiz

Quick to name the Spanish explorer who subjected Southwest Pueblo Indians to cruel domination in 1598 (Juan de Onate) and which tribe’s government most resembled a democracy (the Choctaw), El Camino Real High School of Woodland Hills inched out archrival and neighbor Taft High School by one point Saturday to win the Super Quiz portion of the city’s Academic Decathlon.

“I’m unbelievably happy and proud,” said El Camino decathlon coach Mark Johnson, whose team lost to Taft last year. He said the organizers, whose topic this year was American Indians: Our American Heritage, “came up with questions I didn’t have a clue to. But those kids up there got them.”

In a surprise move, scrappy Reseda High School, a dark horse that placed 16th last year, zoomed up to tie perennial favorite Pacific Palisades for third place in Los Angeles Unified School District competition.

The Super Quiz is one-tenth of the Academic Decathlon, a nerve-wracking but eagerly anticipated annual ritual held Saturday in high schools across the state. The Super Quiz is the only portion of the decathlon held before an audience.

Super Quiz winners often go on to win the entire decathlon, but competition is close this year among about four schools. The city winner will be announced at a banquet Nov. 28.

In the Los Angeles County competition, Diamond Bar High School in Walnut won the Super Quiz. The overall county winner also will be announced later this month, as will the winner of a third decathlon held for private Los Angeles County high schools.

County winners will compete in the state decathlon in Bakersfield in March. State winners will advance to the nationals in Des Moines in April.

At the Cal State Los Angeles gymnasium Saturday, the atmosphere resembled a pep rally.

Fans waved pompons, slugged Cokes and clapped loudly as 55 teams of nine students vied for the correct answer to puzzlers like: What is the most important event in a young Chickasaw man’s life? Answer: When he receives his name.

Students, who spent the fall boning up on everything from Alaskan Eskimo customs to Indian-white relations, were prepared. Some teams studied five hours a day. Many coaches taught special “Decathlon” classes.

And local repositories of American Indian lore say they were inundated by students taking frantic notes and swarming like locusts through the bookstores.

“We’ve seen hordes of high school kids coming through,” said Barbara Arvi, curator of education at the Southwest Museum in Highland Park. “They buy up everything in sight and come back and use the library.

“Everyone was kind of panicked,” Arvi said. “That’s just a subject that isn’t covered in . . . high school. They just touch on it in 4th and 5th grade.”

Organizers of the Academic Decathlon say they purposely chose this topic to enhance students’ knowledge about the culture and history of American Indians and their mistreatment at the hands of the U.S. government and white settlers.

“We think it’s more important for them to understand how the Indians lived than how they were defeated, which is what you’re going to get in a standard American History text,” said Ann Joynt, executive director for the Cerritos-based U.S. Academic Decathlon.

For those serious competitors who want to get a jump on next year’s Academic Decathlon, Joynt offered one tip: The topic for the 1990-91 Super Quiz is space exploration.