Science Bowl Champions Are a Magnet for Applause

A tired, still dazed but triumphant team of whiz kids returned to classes at Van Nuys High School Math and Science Magnet on Tuesday, dragging a four-foot-high trophy awarded them as the National Science Bowl champions.

“It was just our day,” explained the team’s coach, Arthur Altshiller, who had stood poker-faced at the back of the room in the Washington Convention Center on Monday as his team beat out all other competitors in the tournament. “We were as lucky as we could be.”

Altshiller and the first winning team from Southern California in the 5-year-old competition were greeted Tuesday by applause from teachers and students crowded into the principal’s office.

“They’re all pretty much still blown away,” said Herman Clay, assistant principal of student services at the Van Nuys campus, where 600 of the 2,900 students are enrolled in the math and science magnet program. “They’ll be walking three feet off the ground for the next few days,” he said while outlining plans for a noon victory celebration Thursday in the campus quad.

Signs proclaiming the win are plastered about the grounds and in hallways of the school, which also serves as a magnet in medicine and in the performing arts.

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The competitors were welcomed home late Monday night at Los Angeles International Airport by a contingent of about 60 family members, school officials, students and friends. As Aztec dancers performed for a promotional Guatemala travel film at an adjoining gate, the Wolves Marching Band struck up the school fight song and cheerleaders held aloft an eight-foot-long victory banner.

“We pretty much took over the American Airlines terminal,” boasted Principal Robert G. Scharf, who was among a busload of greeters at the surprise party. Other passengers on the plane were allowed to disembark first, so that only the team was left when the noisy celebration began. Proud officials then congratulated winners, the band played and cheerleaders cheered as film crews recorded the event for late-night news programs.

“These kids really wanted to win,” Altshiller elaborated Tuesday after he dismissed his first physics class of the day. “They not only had the ability, but they had the competitiveness, a tremendous intensity of focus. I’ve never seen a group of kids want to win more.”

He said the five team members drilled “25 hours a day” since the group was assembled in December. Two other teams from the same school competed in preliminary contests in January, but were eliminated in the regional finals in February.

Team members, led by captain Scott Schneider, a junior who competed last year, drilled one another almost continuously after school and on weekends, Altshiller said. The other members, all seniors, are Jonathan Kirzner, Michael Chu, Michael Mazur and alternate Do Joon Ra.

The quintet, led by their coach, frequently piled into a van for field trips to various sites such as power generating and converter stations and a television meteorology laboratory, arranged by the coordinating regional sponsor, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.

The field trips gave students insight into a variety of scientific operations, which in turn inspired their cognitive responses to many complex scientific questions, Altshiller said. Twice during the final rounds, team members corrected erroneous answers on judges’ sheets that were caused by misprints.

To hone their competitive edge during training, students repeatedly listened to a taped philosophical discussion called “The Art of War,” designed to inspire the thinking used in Chinese martial arts. Altshiller said his approach to coaching the team was not to praise them for their accomplishments, but to challenge them to broaden their knowledge still further. “I wanted them to concentrate on how great they could be.”

Thus, Altshiller said his strategy during the competition, which began Sunday in Washington, “was to stay as far back as I could.”

But he said he realized as his team emerged victorious round after round that competitors on opposing teams had begun watching him for his reaction. “I went into a stupor, into my own little world,” Altshiller said. “I tried mentally not to answer any questions because I didn’t know what I looked like, what others were reading in my face.” However, he also admitted he didn’t know the answer to some questions the team answered correctly.

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The Van Nuys group had been scheduled to fly home on Monday afternoon immediately following the competition. But at the urging of the sponsors--the U.S. Department of Energy and the Cray Research Foundation--they agreed to switch to a later flight so that they could attend an awards presentation.

Just like the rest of their decisions that day, it was a lucky move. The plane on the earlier flight was grounded by a hailstorm in Dallas, which would have ended the surprise celebration.

“It was just our day,” Altshiller repeated.