Game for the Challenge

While their classmates have spent the past few balmy afternoons soaking up the sun, El Camino Real High School’s academic decathletes have been ensconced in a near windowless room, poring over hundreds of facts in order to outwit opponents at this weekend’s state Academic Decathlon.

Across town, decathletes at Alemany High School in Mission Hills have been sharpening their own test-taking skills with versions of Jeopardy! and Twister for the three-day competition that begins Friday at Cal Poly Pomona.

“We played [Twister] for two hours,” said Alemany’s head coach Janie Prucha, who made the team members answer questions on English literature before they could touch a colored circle on the contortive floor game.

“They’re a very competitive bunch,” Prucha said.

The two San Fernando Valley campuses will take on 41 other high schools in the 18th annual state contest, a 10-event battle of the brains that tests high school students in categories from art to economics.

El Camino--which finished second last year in the national decathlon--swept the Los Angeles Unified School District competition in November, and Alemany High was victorious in the regional decathlon for private schools.

The state event is a repeat performance for both schools. Alemany’s decathlon team finished ninth overall in its first visit to the state championship last year. El Camino’s team swept the 1996 event, going on to the national finals where it lost by just a fraction of a point.

This year, the defending state champs are hoping to capture the state and national titles in honor of their retiring coach, Dave Roberson, who has directed the school’s decathlon team for the past four years.

“He’s done so much for us and a lot of it we don’t even know because it’s behind the scenes,” said El Camino senior Michal Engelman. “We want to win for ourselves, but also for him because it’s a big team effort.”

The decathlon’s nine-member teams are divided into three academic levels: “honors” are A-average students; “scholastic” are B-average students; and “varsity” have C averages.

Although all of El Camino’s nine team members are new this year, the school’s reputation--and standing title--has made the team Enemy No. 1 to competitors including Trabuco Hills High School in Orange County, and Beverly Hills and Palos Verdes Peninsula high schools in L.A. County.

“These schools are in the hunt and they’re after us,” said Roberson. “That makes everyone a little nervous.”

But team members said they were ready to go brain to brain with their rivals.

“We’re feeling pretty good, but we’re trying not to be overconfident,” said junior Steve Chae, who has spent the past few days perfecting his knowledge of physics. “It’s been a lot of work, but it’s also been fun.”

At Alemany, a Catholic high school, team members have been studying six days a week after school and well into the night at home since November to cram in as much information as possible. Sleep has been scaled back to four or five hours a night for some students, and work for regular classes has been shelved until the state competition is over.

“This has certainly tested my brain’s capacity,” said Alemany junior Brian Van Dyke, “but I think I can take in a little more stuff.”