Laguna Hills Team Hits the Books for 2nd Shot at Title

Their eyes were fixed on their books, but their focus was on one word posted on the wall--REVENGE.

Sequestered in hotel rooms at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Los Angeles, the state champion Laguna Hills High School Academic Decathlon team has spent the week preparing for its second shot in as many years at the national title, to be decided this weekend at two sites in Los Angeles.

Last year, the team took second place in the nationals held in Des Moines, finishing just behind the state champions from Texas. The loss, though heartbreaking last year, has fostered a sort of “Remember the Alamo” spirit this year.

“We remember how much it hurt to take second, and we don’t want to go through that again,” said team captain Jay Kim, 18.

For a full year, the team has prepared for its comeback--poring over books, writing essays and practicing speeches for hours after school, during lunch, in the evening and on weekends.

“The other teams can’t have studied harder than we have, because I don’t think it’s possible,” said Sian Baker, 18, a Laguna Hills senior and a first-time participant in the national finals.

Decathlon champions from 44 states and the District of Columbia will gather at Occidental College and the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising starting today for the finals.

The nine-member teams of 11th- and 12th-graders will be tested on math, science, social science, economics, language and literature, fine arts, essay writing, interview skills and speeches. The event will culminate in Saturday’s Super Quiz, a round of questioning modeled after the television game show “Jeopardy!” This year’s Super Quiz topic is space exploration.

As the team’s eight members--one moved away, leaving the team one member short--strived to absorb immense amounts of knowledge for the coming ordeal this week, their once-tidy Hyatt Regency rooms grew chaotic, littered with Oreo cookies and Mountain Dew cans.

The mood in the rooms was mostly serious, but, as in any situation in which teen-agers gather, the team’s six boys and two girls occasionally cracked jokes and phoned each others’ rooms with prank calls.

But whenever the horseplay got a bit out of hand, team captain Kim had only to point above his bed to the white sign with big, block letters.

“As the day gets closer, we get more serious,” said George Danenhauer, 18, a senior. “By Saturday, we’ll be kind of like a football team going into the Super Bowl. We’ll have our game faces on. We do take this seriously. The teams that don’t take it seriously aren’t here.”

The team is grouped into three levels, based on grade-point averages. Students compete with other students with the same grade-point average. The final team score is composed of the top two scores in each category.

The team consists of: Kim, Danenhauer, Baker, Teddy Chen, 16; Ryan Sakamoto, 17; Todd Faurot, 17; Robin Cheney, 16; and Kirk Brown, 18.

Faurot, a veteran of last year’s finals, and Danenhauer are hoping to finish among the topthree individual players, but for Kim, the team comes first.

“These individual things don’t mean that much to me,” Kim said. “I’d rather finish 10th or 15th and have the team win.”

The winning team will be flown to Washington, D.C., to meet with President Bush and will be on the Johnny Carson show. In addition, $30,000 in scholarships will be divided among top individual winners.