Raucous Fans Cheer Academic Decathlon Teams; L.A. High Wins State ‘Super Quiz’

A different kind of March madness brought a raucous crowd to UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion on Saturday night for the statewide Academic Decathlon, California’s annual test of brainpower for its brightest high school students.

Saturday’s game-show style “Super Quiz” was the only part of the two-day contest open to the public, and hundreds took advantage of the opportunity, chanting and screaming like rabid XFL fans as contestants from 53 schools answered a series of challenging questions on topics ranging from Jean-Paul Sartre to the similarities between Christianity and Buddhism to Native American spiritual practices.

Hosted by local news anchor Larry McCormick, “Super Quiz” is an anomaly for a number of reasons. For one, it’s one of the few places you can hear a mellow, professional news anchor voice say “Soren Kierkegaard.”

It’s also a place where intellectual muscle gets the full rah-rah treatment. Saturday night’s crowd came fully prepared with banners, coordinated cheers and foam “No. 1” fingers. The throng rattled the bleachers during the three-part contest that finally saw Los Angeles High School squeak to a one-point win over Ventura County’s Moorpark High School.

The overall winner of the statewide decathlon, which will be announced today, will travel to Alaska in April for the national championships.

Among the many students cheering as their school took a crack at the state title was Moorpark senior Alejandro Castro, who was sporting a school-spirit wig and a bushy set of pompons.

“I love this. I love cheering these guys on,” said Castro, a member of Moorpark’s boys soccer team. “They should have more events like this, where we cheer kids who come together to test their knowledge.”

To the strains of canned Sousa, the teams marched onto the floor of the arena Olympics-style, some dressed in day-at-church suits, others sporting color-coordinated uniforms. For the competition itself, contestants took to the floor in teams of three, bubbling in answers on Scantron sheets. After each question, scorekeepers hoisted the number of correct answers above their heads like ring girls giving the round numbers--eliciting roars from various partisan cheering sections.

Burbank High School brought a particularly lively group of supporters, among them Anthony Chen, 16, who worked with the team this year and hopes to make the team next season.

“We’ve come really close the last two years, and we worked really hard,” he said. “A lot of nights we’d stay up past midnight.”

In the spirit of the event, Chen and his friends sported blue T-shirts bearing the esoteric taunt: “Burbank High School Academic Decathlon: We are Plato’s Eidos, while you are merely becoming.”

Moorpark High, which won the national championship in 1999, was also among the schools that brought a big cheering section. Though Moorpark lost Saturday’s contest by a point, coach Larry Jones said he thought his team still had a crack at the overall victory. As the team posed for a group picture in the Pauley bleachers after the contest, there was little agony of defeat in the air.

“Look at the support,” said Jones amid a throng of proud parents popping photos. “It’s been six months of intense work. They’ve stayed so focused. The other day in the hotel they put in a straight 17 hours.”

Team member Zachary Ramirez, a top academic achiever at Moorpark who has already been accepted at UC Berkeley and Yale, said it was a relief to have the preparation behind him, and a thrill to go out in front of a wild crowd.

“The thought has run through my head many times: Why can’t I be out playing basketball?” Ramirez said. “But I get a question right on the floor and hear the applause--that is when I really know why I am here.”