Academic Decathlon Teams in Suspense

No matter how good the food is, most of the academic decathlon team members attending tonight’s Los Angeles Unified School District awards banquet probably won’t be able to eat much.

By all accounts, the competitors’ tummies will be tied up in knots as they wait to hear which team will head for the state championship in March in Fresno.

“It’s a real shootout this year,” said El Camino Real coach Dave Roberson, who sees an opportunity for victory among 10 different teams. “We’re on pins and needles every day waiting for the results. We’re up one day and down the next.”

El Camino Real has good reason to be anxious. The school’s team placed second in the Super Quiz portion of the decathlon earlier this month and have consistently been top contenders for the title.

But it’s Marshall High whose first-place finish in the Super Quiz hints at the promise of an overall victory tonight. Their currency is running high, especially since last year’s city, state and national champions Taft are unlikely to bounce back from their disappointing third-place Super Quiz effort.

“I’m not real optimistic about the banquet,” said Taft coach Arthur Berchin. “We may be a little sad, but we have to be realistic, too.”

The banquet will draw more than 1,200 competitors, coaches, parents and friends from 55 schools to the Westin Bonaventure hotel in Los Angeles this evening. They’ll watch as decathlon medals and more than $10,000 in scholarships are bestowed on the top decathlon performers.

The overall winners will be the last announced at about 9:30, and by that time everyone in the California ballroom should have white knuckles from clutching their cutlery while they wait for the sealed envelopes to be opened.

Coach Roberson, for one, can’t wait for the suspense to end.

“If anybody blinks in decathlon, somebody else is going to win,” he said. “If somebody stutters, they’re out of it. It ruined my four-day weekend just thinking about the banquet.”