Moorpark High School is on spring break. The campus is quiet, the classrooms locked and the athletic fields still. But Room M4 is abuzz as nine students spend nearly every waking minute studying the art of Latin America, revisiting arcane economic theory and perfecting speeches.
They are the team-to-beat Academic Decathlon whizzes who defeated every other competitor in the state earlier this year and will leave for Memphis on Monday to represent California in the national contest.
"This is everything we've been working toward," said junior Scott Buchanan, 16. "From that first [team] meeting, we've always had our eye on this."
The classroom where they meet belongs to history teacher Larry Jones, who has coached the school's decathlon teams since 1991. Trophies line shelves, medals dangle from the ceiling, and every inch of wall is covered with certificates, plaques and team photos. Moorpark, which has won three national championships -- including last year's -- is a powerhouse in the world of Academic Decathlon.
In Memphis, 35 teams from across the nation and one from London will compete in a grueling series of speeches, interviews, "Jeopardy!"-style quizzes and tests on subjects including math, social science, language and literature, art, economics and music. Many questions will involve this year's theme, Latin America.
Senior Kris Sankaran became interested in the Academic Decathlon in 2003, when the Moorpark team won the national title and visited his middle school wearing their medals. He now boasts the highest individual score in the event's history: 9,462 points out of 10,000 total.
"It's like batting .500 in baseball. It's impossible, but he did it somehow," Jones said. "He's the best I've ever had. My son on the 2003 team used to be the best I had seen. Kris is better."
Sankaran's accomplishments are the talk of Academic Decathlon circles. One writer on an Internet forum declared, "Kris Sankaran is a force of nature." An informal poll on that site found 64% believe Moorpark will win in Memphis. The next runner-up, a Wisconsin school, trailed at 14%.
If it sounds as though the team members are a bunch of book-bound loners, they're not. Parents, classmates and the community celebrate their successes as enthusiastically as those of sports teams.
Sankaran and teammate Marlena Sampson, both 17, were selected by their peers for the prom court. A documentarian is following the team, hoping to make a film that does for Academic Decathlon what "Spellbound" did for spelling bees.
