El Camino Is 4th in Academic Decathlon

A Houston high school was declared the winner Sunday of the United States Academic Decathlon as the nine-student team from El Camino Real High School of Woodland Hills finished fourth.

It was the second consecutive national title for a Texas team. El Camino, representing California, captured the Western Region championship, took home the Super Quiz prize and harvested 13 medals in individual events.

But it was nevertheless a bitter disappointment for the students from the Woodland Hills school, which made its first appearance at the national level and was among the top contenders entering the contest.

“It looks like we were thoroughly beat,” co-coach Jeff Craig said. “I’m just devastated.”

“We worked so hard,” fellow coach Mark Johnson said hoarsely after the awards ceremony, then was too overcome with emotion to continue.

Out of a possible 60,000 points, El Camino scored 48,340 behind the teams from Texas, Arizona and Illinois. J. Frank Dobie High School won with 49,710 points; Mountain View High School of Mesa, Ariz., collected 49,475, and Whitney Young Magnet High School of Chicago had 48,500.

Mountain View’s showing in the top three overall removed it from contention for the Western Region championship, enabling El Camino to earn that distinction.

The results were announced Sunday night at the convention center here before an audience of 1,000 cheering students, parents, teachers and administrators, including nearly 50 who flew in from Los Angeles. Teams from 47 states and the District of Columbia vied for the crown and for $30,000 in scholarships.

The three-hour banquet was the culmination of a year’s intensive preparation and competition for El Camino, which recorded victories at the city and state levels.

But as the ceremony wore on, and as students from Texas, Arizona and Illinois trooped onstage to collect more individual awards than their California counterparts, the mood at the El Camino table became increasingly subdued. In the end, the Arizona and Texas teams garnered twice as many awards as the California team.

“It’s shellshock,” said Johnson, who has guided the El Camino team for five years. “We were hoping to win as many medals as Arizona and Illinois.”

Coaches and team members knew that they had finished fourth after being named the Western Region winners. Senior Justin Behar couldn’t contain his disappointment.

“Fourth. Fourth,” he repeated to himself. “This is unbelievable.”

One strong performer from El Camino was Brian Lazarus, 18, who received the third-highest score of all students in the B grade-point-average category. He earned a $2,000 scholarship.

“Individual awards don’t matter. It’s all team,” said Lazarus, who clutched a teammate’s napkin to his face as he cried after his team was awarded fourth place. “I didn’t come here for any individual award. . . . It’s just crushing.”

“We were all hoping to meet the President and go to the White House,” said teammate Gil Strauss, 17.

The top three teams will be invited to meet President Bush in Washington this month.

The grueling tournament, which began Friday, tested the students’ knowledge of six subjects: science, language and literature, economics, math, fine arts and social science. Contestants also wrote timed essays, delivered prepared as well as impromptu speeches, and submitted to personal interviews.

The exams were topped off Saturday afternoon by the Super Quiz, a pressure-packed, high-stakes and raucous game-show-like event staged before an audience. The El Camino team, answering 27 of the 30 questions correctly, edged the Texas and Arizona squads by one point.

In the past, the Super Quiz winner has often gone on to take the overall title.

Several team members acknowledged that their inexperience at the national level made a difference.

“We didn’t know exactly what we were going up against,” said Joshua Erdman, one of two juniors on the seven-boy, two-girl team. “We could have gone up to that level, but we just didn’t know.”

“We’re the only team from our school to get this far,” teammate Ethan Bernard said. “Now we know what it takes.”

Awaiting announcement of the final results Sunday evening at the banquet, El Camino team members duplicated the behavior--and superstitions--that had carried them to the state title last month in San Bernardino.

Lazarus methodically tore his cloth napkin into a dozen ragged strips. Teammate Maggie Bandur fingered a shiny ribbon from the corsage she wore at the city awards ceremony in November.

And Craig tucked a snapshot of his wife in the table centerpiece, hoping that an old picture of her expectant form would have the same lucky effect as her pregnant presence at past awards banquets.

The victory by Texas continued a dominance by teams from that state and California, which have finished first every year since the inception of the national competition 11 years ago. Last year, J. J. Pearce High School from Richardson, Tex., defeated Laguna Hills High School to capture the title.

The last California team to win top honors was Taft High School in Woodland Hills--El Camino’s cross-town rival--in 1989.

Despite the general disappointment Sunday night, Bandur took the optimistic view of the competition. “We did really well,” she decided.

And after the banquet, El Camino Principal Martin King promised: “We’ll be back.”