Marshall High Upsets Taft to Win City Decathlon

Months of study paid off Tuesday night for nine students from Marshall High School when they won the Los Angeles Unified School District Academic Decathlon, upsetting the defending national champion, Taft High of Woodland Hills.

The overall decathlon victory, finishing ahead of 54 teams, followed Marshall’s previously announced win in the Super Quiz, one of the decathlon’s 10 academic events.

Marshall has not won a city championship since 1986, when the school went on to win the national title. The awards were announced to a crowd of about 500 competitors and 700 coaches, parents and friends during a nerve-racking and often uproarious banquet at the Westin Bonaventure hotel.

Marshall scored 49,818 of a possible 60,000 points. El Camino Real followed with 47,336 points and University High placed third with 45,741. Taft finished in fourth place, scoring 44,547.

Most teams consist of nine members, evenly divided between A (honor), B (scholastic) and C (varsity) students. Medals and scholarships were presented to the top performers in each category.

Dale Shuger from El Camino Real High School was the overall individual high scorer, with 8,921 of 10,000 points in the honors category.

The academic decathlon is an amalgam of 10 events: six written exams in such subjects as fine arts, literature and science, speech and essay contests, an interview and the high-profile Super Quiz finale.

This year’s Super Quiz, held Nov. 19 at the Los Angeles Convention Center, challenged students with questions from the field of biotechnology. A strong showing at the Super Quiz, although no guarantee of an overall victory, is almost always an indication of a top spot at the awards banquet. Marshall won seven of the 10 decathlon events.

Other members of the championship Marshall team are: Paul Auerbach, James Evrard, Douglas Kleven, Elsie Lau, Sung Lee, Masaki Miyagawa, Steve Na, Linda Siu and Ann Rose Van. Their coach is Phil Chase, winner of 1992 decathlon coach of the year award.