ACADEMIC TEAMS READY TO BE TESTED.

Byline: Lisa M. Sodders Staff Writer

This year's Academic Decathlon season promises to be the toughest ever for schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District, with former national champion Taft High School leading the pack in practice matches.

``This is probably going to be the closest, most competitive competition we've ever had in LAUSD,'' said Cliff Ker, the LAUSD's Academic Decathlon coordinator.

Last year, one team scored more than 27,000 of a possible 42,000 points in scrimmage competition. This year, two teams scored above 29,000, seven scored over 26,000 and 33 teams topped 17,000 points.

Sponsored by the U.S. Academic Decathlon, the national competition is the largest academic contest of its kind in the United States. High school students compete as individuals and on nine-member teams in 10 academic categories that include essays, interviews, speeches and written tests.

The season begins in November with a series of scrimmages, followed by the district competition in January and February, the state competition in March and the national competition in April.

With 11 state championships and six national championships since 1986, the LAUSD is an Acadeca powerhouse. In fact, district teams perform so well that more than one squad has been invited to the state competition.

Last year, the district sent nine teams - one winner and eight invited teams - to the state Academic Decathlon. The lowest-scoring team ranked 21st in the state.

But the district faces tough competition from schools on its borders. Among them are Moorpark High, which won the national title in 1999, and Simi Valley High, both in Ventura County.

Bishop Alemany High School, a Catholic school in Mission Hills that has won the Southern California private school competition for the past several years, and Burbank High School also pose threats.

The scrimmages - seven objective tests in art, economics, language and literature, mathematics, music, social science and the Super Quiz - were used by some schools to select the nine students from each school to be on the teams. Other schools already had selected their nine members, Ker said.

Taft High School, in Woodland Hills, placed first with a scrimmage score of 29,175 points. Taft won the national competition in 1989 and 1994, and the coach who led the school to victory, Art Berchin, has returned to coach this year's scholars.

``We knew they were a force because their coach is back,'' said Altair Maine, the coach at North Hollywood High, which won the scrimmage last year but placed third this year.

``There's a lot of people fighting for the first, but we're going to pull up a lot. El Camino Real was down, but I'm not willing to count them out. I don't think anyone can call it this year.''

El Camino Real High School in Woodland Hills placed ninth in the scrimmages this year, but the school has a long tradition of winning decathlons. It has won the district competition seven times and the national championship in 1998 and 2001.

Coach Melinda Owen and her partner, Christian Cerone, are anticipating a challenging season but say their team is more than ready. And unlike teams of the past, this year's squad features more girls than boys.

``We've never had so many females - seven out of the nine team members are females,'' Owen said. ``It changes the intensity of it, which should be interesting. There's more emotion involved, less pure adrenalin and aggression.''

Victoria Kim, 17, of El Camino said the realization that other schools are trying their hardest only makes the competition more exciting.

``The decathletes from before say it's an experience you really can't compare to anything else,'' Kim said. ``I'm expecting it to be something I'll won't forget - a once-in-a-lifetime experience. If our team gives our best, we can hold our heads up high.''

The district decathlon will begin Jan. 25, when the teams will compete in speech, interview and essay competitions at Francisco Bravo Medical Magnet in Los Angeles. On Feb. 1, the students will go to the University of California, Los Angeles, to take seven more quizzes before taking the Super Quiz oral exam, the only public portion of the Academic Decathlon.

The scores of all 10 quizzes will be tallied together and the winners announced Feb. 6. Those winners will then advance to the state finals in Modesto on March 7-9.

The top-scoring team of that contest will represent California in the national championship in Erie, Pa., on April 23-26.

The series of grueling tests, which require hours of study and preparation, prepare students well for college, Ker said.

``So many of the kids, when they get to college, say college is a piece of cake after studying for Academic Decathlon,'' he said. ``I met a kid who had been a decathlete at Marshall High School - she's a double major at (the University of California, Berkeley) majoring in molecular biology and computer science. The coach told me she's writing the computer programs that will tell DNA what to do. That's not atypical of these kids.''

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