No-Brainer

By KATE FOLMAR

Jan. 7, 1999 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

The Hatfields and McCoys, the Bruins and Trojans--fine rivalries both. But when the battle involves brains rather than brawn, the duo to watch are Moorpark and Simi Valley high schools.

For the last six years of the Ventura County Academic Decathlon, teams from these two east county schools have won the contest handily and advanced to the highly competitive state tournament.

They have traded off titles--Moorpark, Moorpark, Simi, Simi, Simi, Moorpark--to the extent that some other schools gripe that the decathlon has become a two-team contest.

With the meeting of the minds set to begin Saturday, members of the Simi and Moorpark teams say their friendly rivalry can be a powerful motivator when studying gets dull, caffeine loses its jolt and sleep starts to beckon.

“We want to go to the state competition,” said senior Ryan Nilsen, a Simi Valley academic decathlete. “We want to win. Moorpark is basically standing in our way. . . . We want our title back.”

Moorpark team members, guided by Larry Jones, the mellow guru of county decathlon coaches, admit that Simi Valley is the main competition, but they have high hopes of making it to the state Academic Decathlon even if their rivals do indeed snatch the title back.

“Not to sound cocky, but we’re the most competitive schools in the county,” said Nick Lange, a Moorpark senior with a loose ponytail and slouchy jeans. “They may beat us, but we won’t lose. Even if Simi scores higher than us [at the county competition], we will still probably score high enough to be a wild card team” at the state contest in Stockton.

If these poised teens sound confident, it’s because they are.

For up to 30 hours a week since school started, they have read and reread Herman Hesse’s “Siddhartha,” become experts in 20th-century art and ancient civilizations, and crammed their brains with as much information about the human brain as they could muster.

In recent weeks, the studying has reached frenzy level in preparation for the decathlon, a 10-event contest spread over two weekends in which students are tested on literature, music, math, social sciences, economics and art. This weekend, the students will deliver prepared and impromptu speeches, write an essay and navigate a personal interview.

In addition to Moorpark and Simi Valley, teams from Adolfo Camarillo, Buena, Channel Islands, Hueneme, Newbury Park, Oxnard, Rio Mesa, Santa Susana, Thousand Oaks, Ventura and Westlake high schools will participate in the competition at Oxnard High.

In all, 160 students on 19 teams will join the decathlon. Each team--some schools field two--includes three students who average “A” grades, three B students and three C students.

“I’m real careful who I select,” said Jones, the Moorpark coach. “I need kids who will jump through the hoops. I look at their transcripts, talk to their science and math teachers, check their standardized tests. . . . One of the tricks is finding that genius kid with a below-3.0 grade-point average because he’s turned off to school. I try to find those kids if they’re willing to turn it on.”

Simi’s Ryan Nilsen may very well be one of those students. A former hockey player who dreams of joining the Marine Corps, he jokes that he “doesn’t exactly look like an academic decathlete.”

“I didn’t actually think I would make the team,” he said during a break in a recent practice. “I’m not the strongest student. Before I joined the team, no one had really taken a chance on my intelligence. But [Coach Ken] Hibbitts did. I’ve learned more in Academic Decathlon than I have during my whole high school career.”

Through decathlon, students learn how to study and work cooperatively, Camarillo Coach Susan Kipp said. The experience is attractive to colleges and scholarship selection committees.

“If you have a student who isn’t an athlete, this is one of the few ways in our county for them to achieve and compete with each other in the academic arena,” Kipp said. “They learn a lot of valuable information that will stead them well in high school, college and life. They can’t lose.”

While the idea behind Academic Decathlon is promoting academic excellence, the recent east county reign has upset coaches and students at a few other schools. Some wonder why they should bother competing if other schools will win all the awards.

Others grouse that having an Academic Decathlon class, as Simi and Moorpark do, gives students and coaches more time to prepare. Some have even complained that wearing boutonnieres to the contest, as Simi and Moorpark do, is an unfair advantage.

To make the contest more enjoyable for all, the teams are divided into “divisions” this year, with the highest-scoring teams from last year in one bracket, the lower scorers in another and schools’ junior varsity teams in the third.

The divisions concept is an experiment that may continue next year if successful, said Phil Gore, the county’s Academic Decathlon coordinator.

“It’s really intended to provide more competition among the teams and a greater incentive for the kids and coaches to prepare,” he said. “In so doing, we hope to generate more support for the event and also a wider distribution of awards and acknowledgments to the kids . . . without taking anything away from the team that surfaces as the strongest.”

The winning Ventura County team will advance to the state competition in March. In turn, the state winner will ascend to the national contest in April. It is possible for more than one team from any county to advance to the state competition as a wild card if it is among the highest scorers statewide that did not win.

The coach from Buena High, one of four county schools to win the decathlon, believes that Moorpark or Simi is very likely to win--because those schools devote the most time and resources to the event--but that the runners-up will have tightly clustered scores.

“I would love to have a [decathlon] class. Then I think we could challenge them,” said Buena’s Gary Diehl. “I don’t think kids in one part of the county are smarter than the others. But I do think socioeconomic factors can leave some kids with richer life experiences.”

But students in Moorpark and Simi Valley believe that the sheer amount of dedication, preparation and studying determines the course of events. Fielding a strong “aca-deca” team, as many students call it, takes sacrifice.

Besides cramming for the decathlon, Simi Valley senior Erika Supetran also takes Advanced Placement classes and works a part-time job to pay to take her AP tests.

Her philosophy: “People really have lots of time for other things if they don’t sit on the couch and watch the tube.”

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County Winners

Here are the high schools that have won Ventura County’s Academic Decathlon competition since the county schools office began running the contes in 1982. Winners of the county competition move on to the state tournament.

1998: Moorpark

1997: Simi Valley

1996: Simi Valley

1995: Simi Valley

1994: Moorpark

1993: Moorpark

1992: Thousand Oaks

1991: Buena

1990: Buena

1989: Thousand Oaks

1988: Thousand Oaks

1987: Thousand Oaks