Groupthink

Note to the El Camino Real academic decathletes: Beware the Ides of March.

That is the warning issued by a squad of spunky scholars from Simi Valley High School as they prepared to begin this weekend’s statewide Academic Decathlon, where students will test their smarts on such erudite topics as Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar.”

Could it be coincidence that brings the upstart Simi squad to square off with the defending state champions from Woodland Hills the weekend of March 15, the same day Caesar fell?

Well, maybe, conceded the nine Simi decathletes.

But when you have spent the last month studying, studying, goofing off a little, then studying some more for the ultimate, 10-event brain buster, sometimes you ask punchy questions.

“Since it’s getting close to the day of the event, I’m kind of brain-numb,” confessed senior Donny Kim, 17.

And, for perhaps the first time ever, the team believes it is within the realm of possibility that a Ventura County squad could take the three-day decathlon.

So Simi, which took fifth place in last year’s competition, is gunning for the champs from the Los Angeles area.

In the classroom where they studied, the chalkboard bears a scribbled point-by-point breakdown of the Simi and El Camino scores from November’s regional competition. El Camino won the Los Angeles Unified School District contest with about 48,000 points out of 60,000, while Simi took the Ventura County title with 44,000.

“El Camino--that’s our goal,” said senior Rey Remolacio, 18, taking a break from speech practice one afternoon this week. “We must beat them to make nationals, but we’re the underdogs. It would be a great honor to beat them because they’re such a great team.”

To reach their goal, Rey, Donny and company have spent countless hours reading up on a mishmash of topics: Uganda’s trade partners, George Bernard Shaw’s “Pygmalion,” Edward Hopper’s painting “Nighthawks.”

Evenly divided among A, B and C average students, the Simi team hopes to best 42 other squads from across California to advance to the national Academic Decathlon, to be held in St. George, Utah, next month. A Ventura County team has never captured top state honors, which are often snatched by powerhouse Los Angeles and Orange County teams.

*

The decathlon in Pomona, which runs from 12:30 today through an awards brunch Sunday, includes tests in economics, the fine arts, math and literature. Beyond regurgitating facts, anxious students also put their personalities on the line in a mock job interview, a rehearsed speech and an impromptu speech.

One recent afternoon, half the students reviewed sample questions about the religion, trade, politics, history and geography of Africa while the others practiced their speeches.

Junior Vincent Chu, hand trembling and voice dripping with conspiratorial humor, was practicing a speech about the trauma of taking the SATs. This is one of the three speeches he may use.

“The Ebonics speech is pretty good, but it’s really liberal, which could hurt me if I get a really conservative judge,” said the 17-year-old, clad in shorts and sneakers.

When the tension gets to them, the squad of eight boys and one girl starts ribbing each other and their coaches, Ken Hibbitts and Rob Collins.

*

Because of that kooky “XY chromosome thing,” letting off steam entails playing soccer or wrestling with one another, mused junior Nam Nguyen, the team’s lone female. Or maybe the rowdiness is attributable to a truncated sleep schedule for the team, which includes junior Mike Selvaggio and seniors Brian Mercurio, Christian Milan, Joe Dougherty and Nicholas Briggs.

Nicholas, a member of last year’s squad, knows that the fun and games are over now that they have reached Cal Poly Pomona.

From here on out, the team will be immersed in 5 inches worth of study materials.

“It gets nerve-racking,” said the 18-year-old team captain. “You’re studying all the time. You’re working really hard. You can feel the pressure. You stay up till midnight or 1 studying. . . . When you get to the hotel, it’s somber. No one talks. There’s nothing to say anyhow because everyone’s busy studying.”

It’s a grind, but there is also an immense payoff, he said: personal satisfaction, camaraderie and a shot at winning it all. Or maybe breaking into the top three.

Before returning to the books, Nam, 17, offered her own thoughts on the matter.

“I don’t know if most of our school knows that the team exists,” she said. “But the principal promised us a trip to Disneyland if we took first place. We’re thinking about doing it just to spite him.”

She wouldn’t mind unseating the ruling El Camino team either.