By HEATHER BREMNER, Staff Writer
Thursday, February 12, 2004 2:55 PM PST
With a 20-years plus consecutive streak of wins under its belt, it's evident Central Union High School is nearly unstoppable when it comes to the Academic Decathlon.
Just ask a Central team member how much time he or she dedicated to studying for this competition and it's obvious what continues to catapult this team to the top.
"We study about an hour every day after school and for like six hours a day for six days," said Lindsay Claverie, 16, who placed in eight of 10 categories.
Lindsay was one of 25 students competing in the 2003-04 Imperial County Academic Decathlon on Friday and Saturday. Individual and team winners were announced during a banquet Wednesday night at the Imperial County Office of Education.
After Central, of the three local schools that entered the rigorous competition, Southwest High School placed second and Imperial High School nabbed third.
Lindsay — a junior and first-time competitor — said one of the reasons she was excited to attend Central was because of spotless record in the Academic Decathlon.
"I'd always heard that our sports teams were OK but that Central had a really good Academic Decathlon team," she said.
Central Academic Decathlon coach and honors English teacher Chuck Tally doesn't have to search for an answer to explain why his team continues to win.
"We work our brains off," he said.
Central has an eighth-period class devoted to studying for the competition and the team spends two weekends each year in San Diego.
"We go out to the beach and I make them stay in the hotel the whole time," joked Tally.
Well, actually, it's not a joke. Although he does give the students some free time to go out to dinner as a group, most of the weekends are spent indoors studying. Those lengthy study sessions allow the team to develop an intense camaraderie.
"They live together," said Tally. "They stay in motel rooms and stay up until 2 or 3 in the morning."
The competition includes written and oral tests. Students are divided into three groups, depending upon their grade-point average. Honors is reserved for students with 3.75 or higher GPAs while students in the scholastic category must have GPAs between 3.0 and 3.74. Varsity students have GPAs below 3.0.
The scores were tallied individually and the school with the highest number of points overall won.
Individually, Central students had the most points in each category. Young Woo achieved the highest overall score and the highest in the honors division. Monica Briseño had the highest score in the scholastic division and Martin Campos headed the varsity squad.
Although Imperial High placed third, individually the team did the best it has in five years — a big step for the small high school. This was the first year it actually had a full team and it showed, said coach Jack Little. The team even had members who signed up at the last minute and still managed to place.
Said Little, "This year I had a girl (Anabella Rivera) that was on the team for three days and walked away with five medals."
>> Staff Writer Heather Bremner can be reached at hbremner@ivpressonline.com or 337-3445.