Mind Games : High School Juniors and Seniors Compete With Brains, Not Brawn

When the announcement came over the gymnasium loudspeakers Saturday that the Laguna Hills High School team was racking up big points, it only seemed natural that the audience would jeer.

Laguna Hills, after all, was the team to beat.

It was not a test of brawn between two teams on the basketball court, but of mental aptitude that challenged 423 students from 47 Orange County high schools.

And the Orange County Academic Decathlon, held at Esperanza High, was as tough as any contest between rivals on a playing field.

The juniors and seniors from the South County school were hoping for a fourth countywide championship that would set them on the road to a “three-peat” state title and another chance at the national competition.

The tournament rated students of all grade-point averages in the areas of mathematics, science, social science, language and literature, economics, and fine arts. Students were also required to write an essay, deliver prepared and impromptu speeches, and go through an interview.

And there was also the “Super Quiz,” the final event open to the public that posed 30 questions on the topic “Habitat Earth.”

Using a game-show format, a moderator read the questions as the audience sat hushed. Contestants were given a few seconds to mark their answers and have them checked by a proctor. Each team’s scores were then displayed for the audience to see.

“Which of the following chemicals is used instead of water as a coolant in breeder reactors?” the moderator asked. “A) boron, B) plutonium, C) uranium 238, D) ionized water, or E) liquid sodium.”

The cheers from contestants indicated it had been an easy question. The answer was E.

“Some of them were real common sense questions, and some of them were real hard,” University High senior Beth Kenyon said after the contest.

It was anybody’s game going into “Super Quiz,” because cumulative scores for all the tests would not be tallied and made public until the awards banquet on Wednesday.

“I don’t care about anything else, I just want to beat Laguna Hills,” El Dorado junior Danielle Humiston told her teammates as they checked the scores before “Super Quiz.”

“I was really kind of apprehensive when I came in, because you have the same schools winning just about every year,” added teammate Jonathan Hsiao, a junior. “You want to try and do well, but there’s always that barrier you have to cross.”

Esperanza senior Ethan Sprang was optimistic that his team--which placed fourth overall last year--stood a good chance of surpassing Laguna Hills in the scoring.

“From what I hear,” Sprang said, “most of the Laguna Hills team graduated” last year.

It is a fact not lost on Laguna Hills senior Teddy Chen, captain of the team that is feeling the pressure to perform well again this year.

“It’s a little bit more difficult (compared to last year), considering that we have four seniors and five juniors,” Chen said. “We are kind of on the under-experienced side and putting us at a little bit of a disadvantage. But the juniors are really bright.”

Laguna Hills junior David Huang said he has never felt so stressed.

“If we don’t win, I will feel really bad,” he said. But, he added, he felt proud that other schools were marking his team’s progress.

“There’s a sense of confidence, knowing we have been there” at higher levels of competition, Laguna Hills junior Jeff Ferrell said. “We have faced better teams and bigger challenges.”

His teammates may not win individual medals for the highest scores, Ferrell added, but he thinks the members will get excellent scores in all the categories.

The event also gave students an opportunity to test their personal skills, even if their teams were not expected to do well.

“I did better on the impromptu (speech) than on the prepared speech,” Buena Park senior Kristan Ramey said, shaking her head as she left the classroom. “That’s never happened before.”

And during his interview with judges, Loara High School junior Jason Brockman was asked why he participated in the event.

“The coach approached me . . . (and said) ‘We are looking for smart individuals who do poorly in school,’ and that fits me real well,” Brockman told the judges.

Among those expected to make a good showing when the winners are announced Wednesday is Irvine’s University High, which came in third last year.

“We would like to beat” Laguna Hills, University senior Mark Anderson said. “It’s fun trying, even though we probably won’t.”