In athletics and academics, they’re rivals -- and boosters

Over the years, Dorsey and Crenshaw High Schools -- two athletic powerhouses known for waging historic battles in basketball, football and track and field -- have enjoyed one of the most intense neighborhood rivalries in the nation.

But while the Dorsey Dons and Crenshaw Cougars routinely attract large crowds and widespread attention in sports, they usually don’t generate the same level of excitement when it comes to events like the Academic Decathlon.

Indeed, in nearly a decade of coaching Dorsey’s Academic Decathlon team -- last year’s most improved school in the Los Angeles Unified School District -- Donald Singleton has never had to worry about the other guys -- until now.

This year, Crenshaw stepped up its game by hiring, as a “consultant,” the coach of last year’s regional championship team from Granada Hills Charter High School in the San Fernando Valley.

Now the Dorsey-Crenshaw match-up will be a key feature of today’s regional LAUSD Academic Decathlon at UCLA, where more than 500 students on 64 teams will compete to determine this year’s champs and decide which teams will proceed to the state level in March.

Eric Redd, a 17-year-old senior and Crenshaw’s only veteran decathlon team member, says the competition with Dorsey is more than heated. “They are our main rivals,” said Redd, who competed as a 10th- and 11th-grader. “No matter what sport, it’s a natural feeling.”

The district competition, which has launched 10 national champions since 1987, will also feature heavyweights El Camino Real High, which won national titles in 2004, 2005 and 2007, and Taft High, the winner in 2006.

Back when the event was still in its infancy, Dorsey High was among the district’s elite, winning the Super Quiz five times during the 1980s.

Singleton, a barrel-chested man who teaches law and is called “Daddy” by his students, wants to rekindle some of that winning fire in a team whose members have an average grade-point average of 2.6. What the nine team members lack in grades they make up in grit and determination, he said.

“Many of our best and brightest avoid the team like the plague because it requires so much work,” he added.

There are stories of hardship on both the Dorsey and Crenshaw teams -- illness, parents who’ve been in jail, families homeless or unemployed -- but they are the kinds of ills that healthy competition helps soothe.

It was the challenge that drove 17-year-old Dale Anderson, a Dorsey senior, to quit the football team after an injury and join the decathlon squad.

“You can only go so far in sports,” he said. “I want to build myself up in other ways, not just go home and watch TV. I kept hearing how smart the [people on the decathlon team] were. I figured I’m just as smart as a 4.0 student. I can do it.”

In the days before the competition, the teams have been gleaning minute facts about the Civil War -- the literature, the art, the music -- which is the focus of the questioning in this year’s Super Quiz, the final competitive event and the only one open to the public.

The preparation involves studying at least four to five hours each day -- with some students taking material home and challenging one another in early morning phone calls.

In the end, Singleton said, the hard work and perseverance pay off. Over the years, 85% of the students on Dorsey’s decathlon team have attended four-year colleges; most are the first in their families to attend college.

What’s more, last year Dorsey placed 17th out of more than 60 schools in the overall district competition, an accomplishment that earned the Dons the title of “most improved school.” Crenshaw, meanwhile, was living in Dorsey’s shadow -- a reality that gnawed at Cougar pride.

Jeff Goldberg, Crenshaw’s advanced-placement history teacher, took over the team last year after he transferred from Huntington Park High School. Organizing a team that first year was tough.

“It was like herding cats,” he said. “The kids didn’t want to show up.” Crenshaw went to the LAUSD championships and placed 54th out of 62 teams. “Hey, that was good,” said Goldberg, who has an easygoing style with his students. “I was glad we weren’t last.”

Determined to field a stronger team this year, Goldberg recruited a sharp core of students from his history class and put out the word that he needed an assistant.

“I got real lucky,” he said.

Nicholas Weber, the coach of last year’s winning Granada Hills squad, had left to pursue a graduate degree and agreed to work at Crenshaw as a consultant. He helped Goldberg reconstruct the team, particularly in the area of motivation. Weber posed a simple question to the members: What do you want to accomplish?

Their response was simple as well. “ ‘We want to do better than any Crenshaw team has ever done,’ ” Weber recalled the students saying. “They said, ‘We want to leave a lasting impression.’ ”

To motivate them, Weber showed how the progress enjoyed by the Granada Hills title team compared favorably with their own achievement.

“One of the things I did is show them they were capable of going where they want to go,” Weber said. “I said, ‘Here is how we did it last year,’ and I showed them how their scores were on the same path as Granada Hills. The kids at Crenshaw never lost faith and motivation in themselves. That was one of the keys to success.”

Soon Crenshaw was ready to deliver a message to the rest of the district. In November, the team placed 14th in a scrimmage with more than 60 other schools and is a good bet to be this year’s most improved. Dorsey was 24th.

“They trounced us in that scrimmage, and they had never beaten us before,” Singleton said.

Over the winter break, students at Crenshaw and Dorsey -- campuses less than three miles apart -- held joint practices. The competition was fierce.

“It’s really exciting to see the rivalry,” said Dan Spetner, a former Dorsey coach who led the team to Super Quiz wins in the ‘80s and now heads a decathlon preparation company. “When you have a neighborhood rivalry, kids study harder. El Camino and Taft push each other and then Granada Hills jumped in. There is no question that the rise of Crenshaw this year will push Dorsey to another level.”

Despite the rivalry, the teams are pulling for each other.

“They are a good team,” said Dorsey team captain Ro’Dasha Johnson, a 17-year-old senior. “I respect them. They’ve worked hard and I want them to succeed.”

But her desire to win hasn’t diminished, said Johnson, who traded a position on the school’s track team for one as an academic decathlete

The respect is mutual.

“Dorsey is a great team,” said Josh Frost, a senior at Crenshaw. “If I see Dorsey on the stage [getting an award], I’ll be cheering because I know what it’s like to come from an inner-city school. I want to show them my support.”

Students from both teams said they were seeking to redefine the image of their schools.

“We just don’t want to be known for athletics,” said Crenshaw senior Rochelle Dopson-Witz, a 4.0 student who hopes to attend Stanford next year. “We want to show that we’re capable of great things in other ways.”

john.mitchell@latimes.com