No Question, Decathletes Get Hero’s Welcome

Talk about a triumphant return.

The aptly named Conquistadores of El Camino Real High School received a hero’s welcome Monday as the school marching band, cheerleaders and a dozen television crews turned their arrival into a boisterous celebration.

The exhausted teenagers, who on Sunday won the national academic decathlon in Providence, R.I., were surrounded by well-wishers as they emerged from their flight at Los Angeles International Airport, wearing broad smiles and clutching trophies.

Los Angeles Unified School District Supt. Ruben Zacarias came to shake their hands. School board member Valerie Fields, who represents Woodland Hills, El Camino’s home, brought a bouquet of lilies and tulips.

Teacher Jim Centorino, who made the trip to Providence, played the theme from “Rocky” on a trumpet as the El Camino team posed for pictures and analyzed their effort for the benefit of the media.

The overnight celebrities handled the spotlight like pros, rattling off sound bites for TV reporters--some from Korean- and Chinese-language stations because of the team’s ethnic makeup.

“How do you feel coming home to this overwhelming show of support?” one reporter asked senior Adi Zarchi.

“You said it. Overwhelmed,” Zarchi, 17, fired back. “This is the culmination of nine months of work.”

“You’ll probably get to go to the White House,” the reporter said.

“No problem there.”

Senior Taimur Baig chimed in with a message for the president:

“Bill, if you are out there, we want to meet you.”

El Camino is the third Los Angeles school in five years to capture the national title. Decathlon officials said that Los Angeles schools excel in the competition because the district, the nation’s second-largest, has a vast supply of talented students from which to pick.

El Camino beat decathlon teams from 37 other states, scoring 52,131 points out of a possible 60,000 during the two-day competition that tested knowledge in poetry, physics, economics, social studies and other subjects.

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The victory came after two straight years of second-place finishes for El Camino teams, but El Camino students also relished it for another reason: Archrival Taylor High School of Katy, Texas, which won the national title last year, had to settle for second this year.

“We’re extremely excited,” coach Mark Johnson told several reporters who were interviewing him at once. “We knew we had a good team.”

Coaches from other decathlon squads said El Camino’s success is the result of a rigorous decathlon program that demands up to 50 hours a week of studying. The El Camino decathlon students gave up sports, hobbies and in some cases, friends, for the team.

They often squeezed in homework around their long study sessions.

Fellow El Camino students who made the 30-mile trip from Woodland Hills to the airport could hardly contain their excitement.

“They’re the bomb,” said ninth-grader Leah Simmons, a junior varsity cheerleader. “They’re the best.”

The ovations began long before the El Camino team arrived in Los Angeles. On both legs of the trip home--the team changed planes in Chicago--the flight captains welcomed the team aboard over the intercoms.

Strangers wandered by and offered their own thoughts. “Are these the winners here?” one man asked as the plane approached Los Angeles.

It wasn’t difficult to tell who the winners were when the team finally touched down in Los Angeles. The students unfurled a banner that said “Academic Decathlon National Champions, Providence, Rhode Island” for the big entrance into the airport terminal.

“This baby is going in the library,” coach Dave Roberson said of the banner. “Mark and I have been wanting one of these for 15 years.”

The school planned to hold a rally on campus this morning. The decathlon team members were planning to skip classes to enjoy one more day in the limelight. Classes would wait until Wednesday.

They also were looking forward to a trip in June to Sacramento. The team will present one of their two trophies to Gov. Pete Wilson.

But even that trip seemed far off on Monday. Senior Steve Chae, 18, was thinking only of simple pleasures after nearly a year of grueling work.

“Sleep, party, chill, relax,” he said. “Anything except worry about school. We all want to live in the moment. It’s a once in a lifetime thing.”