Academic Decathletes Receive a Hero’s Welcome
The clapping and cheering. The band playing “YMCA.” The trophies and medals shimmering in the sun. The victory speeches.
El Camino Real High School’s academic decathlon team beat the dreaded “new coach curse,” and it was time to celebrate.
“We did it,” co-coach Christian Cerone said during a lunchtime rally Thursday on the outdoor stage. “We did it.”
Last week, El Camino Real won the Los Angeles Unified School District’s academic decathlon for the fifth straight year and will now advance to the state competition to be held March 17-19 in Los Angeles.
But unlike previous contests, no one expected El Camino to win this year.
Two new decathlon coaches took over this year after the school’s highly regarded coaches--who helped the team win the national championship in 1998--stepped down for personal reasons.
“People kept telling us not to feel down if we didn’t do well our first year,” said Cerone, as he stood with team members under an arch of blue, white and yellow balloons. “I was sort of resigned to doing fair. But we did it.”
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Senior Jeana Jorgensen said team members also believed they would only do OK. “We were the underdogs,” said the 17-year-old, whom coaches credited with helping to motivate teammates. “We found out we won and we all jumped and screamed. We had the mob thing going. It was just mass chaos. We didn’t expect it.”
During the academic decathlon, students were interviewed, delivered speeches, wrote essays and took tests in math, literature, music, social studies, art and economics. They also answered questions on the environment in the fast-paced, College Bowl-style Super Quiz event.
On Thursday, students ate their Oreos, Doritos and Snickers for lunch while cheering for the medal-clad decathletes as if they were Olympians.
They howled hoorays and high-fived one another when Principal Ronald Bauer praised the young scholars for “upholding the ECR tradition.”
Then Bauer beamed and turned to the smiling team. “I don’t know if you all know this but you’ve helped increase your parents’ property values,” he said, referring to stories of people who buy homes in the neighborhood so students can graduate from esteemed El Camino.
Despite the hoopla, the humble decathletes said they’re bracing to study more than 50 hours a week. The school’s archrival--Los Angeles High School--will also go to the state competition along with Los Angeles Unified’s Palisades Charter, Marshall and San Pedro high schools.
Also competing from Los Angeles County will be Rowland High School in Rowland Heights, and Palos Verdes Peninsula, Burbank and Beverly Hills high schools. Bishop Alemany High School in Mission Hills won the private school division, and will also be at the state finals.
El Camino team members speculated that their fiercest competitors will be Ventura County’s Simi Valley and Moorpark high schools, the latter of which was the U.S. champion last year.
Moorpark students hope to retain their title at the national finals April 14-16 in San Antonio, Texas.
Regardless of the competition from Ventura County, senior Sean Rostami, 18, who won 10 medals in the LAUSD competition, said El Camino’s team is especially intent on beating Los Angeles High School.
“We want to have the last laugh,” he said.
