Decathlon’s Benefits Not Just Academic

El Camino Real High School enjoys a reputation for turning out exceptional academic decathletes with promising futures. But once high school ends and the decathlons are over, what becomes of these academic superstars?

They are television writers, attorneys and scholars studying both here and abroad.

Although the facts they are quizzed on may not always stick, many of life’s lessons do, said members of past El Camino championship teams.

This is the eighth year in the last 12--and the sixth in a row--that the Woodland Hills high school is sending a team to the state finals.

Of the 49 Los Angeles Unified School District decathlon teams, Marshall, Los Angeles, North Hollywood, Garfield, San Pedro and Palisades Charter high schools will also compete at state finals Friday through Sunday in Los Angeles.

Melinda Owen and Christian Cerone, current coaches for El Camino Real, took over the team two years ago. Former coach Mark Johnson, who worked with the teams from 1987 to 1992 and 1997 to 1999, led the 1997-98 team to a national championship.

As the nine-member El Camino Real team prepares to tackle questions in economics, art, music, language, literature, mathematics and social science this week, a few of their predecessors were asked how the experience has affected their lives.

BRIAN LAZARUS 1991-92 TEAM

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Brian Lazarus has always had goals. He just did not know he would reach them so soon. A 26-year-old lawyer who plans to marry his college sweetheart over Labor Day weekend, Lazarus said he learned rigorous study habits from the months of preparation required to become a champion decathlete.

Those skills helped him earn a bachelor’s degree in communications with a double major in economics from Northwestern University. He graduated magna cum laude in 1999 from Georgetown University Law School.

“Decathlon was the first time I learned how to really focus,” said Lazarus, whose team placed fourth at nationals that year.

Before joining the team, he was a B student who cared more about basketball than studying, he said. Now he handles corporate transactions for a Century City law firm, working on mergers that will improve computer chips and negotiating livestock supply contracts.

As a second-year associate, he jokes about having the smallest office and the worst view in the 180-lawyer firm. But he is not complaining.

“Every once in a while I take a step back,” he said. “I’m 26 years old, in an economy where the market is questionable and declining. I have a good-paying job that exposes me to high-powered people. I’m getting married in six months. Life is not bad.”

JACQUELINE MOSES

1996-97 TEAM

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Jacqueline Moses had to give up dance and drama when she joined the El Camino Real team that took second place at nationals. She rekindled those interests in college.

Now the 19-year-old is studying abroad in Bologna, Italy, during her junior year at UC Berkeley. Moses, who hopes to become a film director, is taking modern dance twice a week. She lives in an apartment with three Italian girls and sings in a gospel choir.

In addition to working 20 hours a week writing clothing descriptions for a fashion Web site, she takes classes on the history of theater, documentary cinema and Italian language.

She said she remembers little of the decathlon trivia she memorized in high school, but she has not forgotten the sacrifices she made.

“You had to devote your life to it,” she said. “And I did.”

Even so, she said the experience was worthwhile.

“I learned how to work with other people and get along with people I didn’t necessarily see eye to eye with,” she said. “And winning was a great experience. I guess I got my 15 minutes of fame.”

MAGGIE BANDUR

1991-92 TEAM

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Across from movie posters of “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” and “Star Wars” on Maggie Bandur’s office wall, there is a framed page from the Hollywood Reporter that lists her name for Emmy consideration.

Bandur, 27, is a writer for the hit Fox sitcom “Malcolm in the Middle,” about a middle-class family with four squabbling brothers including Malcolm, a normal kid with a genius IQ.

Bandur studied radio, television and film at Northwestern University. After graduating in 1996, she went to work for an entertainment publicity firm, writing press releases.

Bandur described herself as a geek in high school who was painfully shy.

“I’m like a lot of people who sort of found comedy to get through life,” she said.

Before landing a job as one of 11 writers on the show, she wrote for “The Brian Benben Show” on CBS, which aired only four times.

“Even now sometimes I think maybe I should have been a lawyer because this is a very insecure job,” she said. “After [“The Brian Benben Show”] I went through a period of blissful unemployment.”

She was married in January to an organic chemist. A photo on her desk shows her in a Northwestern Wildcats sweatshirt, standing next to “Jeopardy” quiz show host Alex Trebek. “That’s when I was on ‘College Jeopardy,’ ” she said.

She did not win, but her stint on the decathlon team helped her prepare, she said.

MICHAL ENGELMAN

1996-97 TEAM

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Academic decathlon does not make people successful, but success-bound people usually join, said former team member Michal Engelman, 21.

Engelman, a senior history major at Harvard University, has accomplished a lot since the days she spent on the El Camino Real team.

She volunteers to teach low-income children about world cultures, tutors children in English as a Second Language and prepares dinner twice a week at a homeless shelter. She speaks Russian, Hebrew, Yiddish and Ukrainian.

“To commit to decathlon, you have to be motivated,” Engelman said. “People who have that kind of motivation in high school will persist with it through college.”

After graduation in June, Engelman plans to enter public service and maybe eventually attend law school. Money is not important when it come to finding a career, she said. Helping people is.

She recently spent two months traveling throughout Ukraine, Poland and Moldova as a researcher and writer for a Harvard student union travel magazine.

She said she was moved when she saw the schools her Ukrainian-born parents attended and the houses and neighborhoods they grew up in. The poverty and suffering she witnessed made her want to dedicate her life to helping people, she said.

CARINA YUEN

1997-98 TEAM

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A framed photo of the nine-member national champion 1997-98 El Camino Real team sits on Carina Yuen’s desk in her campus apartment.

Yuen is a junior at UCLA, majoring in psychology with minors in education and applied developmental psychology. She will graduate in June--a year early.

She still has a soft spot for her former team members and feels the experience enriched her life.

“I don’t think most regular students come out of high school knowing all this stuff--appreciating opera and art,” she said. “I learned study skills, testing skills, time management, public speaking.”

When she’s not in class or studying, Yuen works at a campus coffeehouse as a student manager. She is also a member of a Christian fellowship.

The time-management skills she learned in high school helped her balance activities and college classes, she said.

She plans to apply to Cal State Northridge for a master’s program in special education, and wants to became a special education teacher.