Decathlon

Re "Taft High Wins State Academic Decathlon," March 20 What a thrill it was to see a photo of most of the winning academic decathlon winners. We need to be happy and proud that we live in a country that encourages students who are a rainbow of diversity to excel. Congratulations to all of the participants and their teachers. ROBBIN CLOSE Sherman Oaks

ALBUQUERQUE - How many of these could you answer? What is conserved in an inelastic collision? (Momentum.) Where were the Boer wars fought? (Modern-day South Africa.) What compositional technique did the 19th century French Romantic composer Hector Berlioz create? ( Idée fixe.) And what is the difference between the surface areas of two spheres with radii of four and six? (80 pi) The Granada Hills Charter High School students here for the national Academic Decathlon competition have spent months studying the guides those questions came from.

Forty years ago today, a young man from a Central California farm town walked into a leftover World War II barracks 10 miles outside of London. It was after midnight. It was dark and quiet inside, and he was careful to close the door softly. He could hear his fellow American athletes snoring softly in their narrow beds. He undressed quietly and slipped into bed. He blinked a few times, stared at the ceiling, and tried to comprehend what he'd just done. But he couldn't. He was too exhausted.

The wrong equation Re " Granada Hills is again the brainiest in state ," March 19 Wonderful story for those kids. But a tragedy for this state and country. We can raise millions of dollars for campaigning to get candidates elected, but we cannot fund education programs so important to all. As your article says: "A preliminary worst-case budget approved by the Board of Education last week would slash the decathlon's funding. " What have we become?

There will be pain, quite a lot of it, but Matt Farmer will grit his teeth and complete the decathlon anyway. The bone spur in his left ankle has kept him from jumping for five weeks, but Farmer won't let it stop him this weekend in the Big West Conference Championships at UC Irvine. "I'm going to finish," Farmer said. "For sure." It is not so much defending his Big West title that drives him, but qualifying for the NCAA championships. Last year, Farmer's best point total was 7,322.

West German decathlete Jurgen Hingsen, the 1984 silver medalist, was out of the competition before it started Wednesday and left the Olympic Stadium in tears. The former world record-holder had 3 false starts in the 100 meters, the first of 10 events in the 2-day decathlon, and was disqualified. Hingsen protested, saying that he wasn't informed that the second false start was against him.

Accompanied by thunder and lightning, two athletes completed a two-day struggle for a gold medal that is as well remembered for the athletes' unique relationship as it is for their magnificent struggle. It was the decathlon at the Rome Olympics, Sept. 5-6, 1960. Thirty years ago today. Two athletes, two countries . . . but the same university, the same coach. Rafer Johnson, a UCLA graduate, was the heavy favorite. He was 25 and just off a world record-breaking performance at the U.S.

Dan O'Brien set a world best in the decathlon long jump Tuesday and took the lead in the Mobil Outdoor Track and Field Championships at Norwalk. O'Brien, 23, of Portland, Ore., completed the first five events of the demanding 10-event competition with 4,656 points. The previous first-day best by an American was 4,526, set by 1968 Olympic gold medalist Bill Toomey at the Mexico City Games. Toomey's total, however, will stand as the American record, because O'Brien's performance was wind-aided.

Have you heard NBC's wildly enthusiastic Olympic promos touting the prowess of Tom Pappas, the U.S. decathlete of Greek ancestry, and the perfect story line for the Athens Games? Folks at Azusa Pacific have, and they wrinkle their noses and ask, "Hey, what about Bryan Clay?" Pappas, the two-time defending world champion, was supposed to be headed for an Olympic showdown with the Czech Republic's world-record holder, Roman Sebrle, and then maybe Bruce Jenner-like fame.

Jackie Joyner-Kersee couldn't help herself. Standing on the backstretch of the track at Saturday night's Sunkist Invitational with her brother Al, Joyner-Kersee fired a verbal elbow to the ribs. Pointing to the pole vault area, where the crossbar was well above the Sports Arena floor, the older sister remarked to her younger brother, "That's 17-(feet-)8. You've got to vault that!"

For the second year in a row, Granada Hills Charter High School won the California Academic Decathlon as Los Angeles Unified schools continued to dominate at the battle of wits that is at risk of being cut by the district in next year's budget. Los Angeles Unified on Sunday schools claimed five of the top 10 spots in the competition in Sacramento consisting of 65 teams and more than 550 students, with El Camino Real and Marshall taking second and third places, respectively. Franklin took fifth place and Taft 10th, while Torrance's West High School came in eighth.

Granada Hills Charter High School, last year's national Academic Decathlon champion, and West High School in Torrance, another perennial top team, were named the winners Thursday in Los Angeles' regional decathlon competitions. Granada Hills, which won Los Angeles Unified its 12th national title in North Carolina last year, took the top place out of the 63 teams that competed in the school district's regional competition. Scoring 51,913 points out of 60,000, the school had one of the highest scores among the nation's regional-level competitions.

Hundreds of high school students lined up outside Roybal Learning Center near downtown Los Angeles on Saturday in letterman jackets and the kind of windbreakers worn by Olympians. Members of the Van Nuys High School team had black paint streaked on their cheeks like savage warriors heading into battle. Instead, the students marched into the school's gymnasium to answer questions about colonization, wars and imperialism as part of the Los Angeles Unified School District's regional Academic Decathlon competition.

Its creators call it CHIP — the Compact, Hyper-Insulated Prototype. But onlookers say the 733-square-foot house looks like a pillow or even a spacesuit because of its quilted exterior: Insulation is stretched around the frame rather than stuffed inside it. Despite those first impressions — or perhaps because of them — CHIP is turning heads on the National Mall in Washington D.C. this week along with 19 other competitors in the U.S. Department of...

Reporting from Charlotte, N.C. -- For weeks leading up to the national Academic Decathlon, two teams — from California and Texas — have been sizing each other up from afar, rekindling a rivalry nearly as old as the competition itself. Each team has something to prove: Granada Hills Charter High School wants to maintain California's winning streak for the ninth consecutive year; Dobie High School, on the outskirts of Houston, wants to show that Texas, dormant as a frontrunner since 2000, is ready to be a contender again.

It's not often that schools across the country look with envy at Los Angeles' public schools, where monumental budget woes, potential widespread teacher layoffs and a long list of hurdles confront the sprawling, diverse school system. But in the Academic Decathlon — a grueling intellectual high school competition — the Los Angeles Unified School District has become the best in the nation. L.A. Unified schools have won the national Academic Decathlon competition 11 times since 1987, more than any other school district.

He was too small. Too frail. Not hardy enough to run a good time in the 1,500. And certainly not good enough to dream about making an impact in the decathlon. "People kind of took me for granted," Bryan Clay said. "They didn't take me seriously, whether because of my personality or my size. Hopefully, now they'll know I'm for real." The silver medal he won Tuesday at the Summer Games should silence any remaining doubts about his ability or the power in his 5-foot-11, 174-pound body.

Because the children of America need a hero, Dave Johnson kept going. So that teen-agers will know it isn't OK to quit, Johnson didn't. So he might praise God, Johnson ignored a stress fracture in a foot he described as "a bloody stump" and limped to an Olympic bronze medal in the decathlon Thursday night. Those were the reasons Johnson gave for his determined and ultimately doomed effort to claim the gold medal that he was favored to win.