El Camino Real High School

Taft High School took first place in the Los Angeles Unified School District's Academic Decathlon on Thursday, unseating defending champion El Camino Real High School and ending its string of seven consecutive local titles. Winning teams from across California will meet in a statewide competition March 7-8 in Modesto. In addition, eight wild card slots are reserved for high-scoring schools. Los Angeles Unified teams did so well in the local competition that they will occupy every wild-card slot.

It may only be a fraction of a team's final score, but the Super Quiz equals the anticipation of a game show. And winning doesn't feel half bad either. Just ask El Camino Real High School, which on Saturday ended Los Angeles High School's three-year reign as Super Quiz champions. The quiz counts for 4% of a team's overall score in the California Academic Decathlon, being held in Modesto this weekend.

About 400 students who recently completed the ACT college entrance exam at El Camino Real High School are waiting to hear if they will need to retake the three-hour test after a copy of the test was stolen. Despite strict security measures, some test booklets sent to the Woodland Hills school were missing Saturday--the day of the test, said Ken Gullette, spokesman for ACT Inc., which owns the test that is taken by 1.8 million students nationwide each year.

It is easy to criticize the president's policies and intellect when he is 2,300 miles away in Washington. But El Camino Real High School's championship academic decathlon team found Monday that it takes too much nerve to do so when Air Force One has just landed and George W. Bush is striding over to shake your hand. So the team--six very vocal Democrats, two quiet Republicans and one besieged Libertarian--stood politely, as directed, at the steps of the president's plane Monday afternoon.

How does someone who hated roller coasters as a child suddenly become enthralled with heights and twisted faces as a teenager? Call it the curse of the pole vault. Sophomore Josh Newborn of El Camino Real High thinks he's taking a roller coaster ride each time he launches himself from his pole. He even adds his own sound effects--screaming--after he clears the bar. "It changes your whole perspective on what you can do with your body," Newborn said.

Who wants to be an academic decathlete? About 70 students at El Camino Real High School, where the luster of the school's victory in the U.S. Academic Decathlon attracted double the usual number of hopefuls Tuesday to tryouts for next year's team. "It's like a cool thing now," said Grace Giles, 18, a member of the all-senior championship squad. "It's like a trend, almost."

Who wants to be an academic decathlete? About 70 students at El Camino Real High School in Woodland Hills, where the luster of the school's victory in the U.S. Academic Decathlon attracted double the usual number of hopefuls Tuesday to tryouts for next year's team. "It's like a cool thing now," said Grace Giles, 18, a member of the all-senior championship squad. "It's like a trend, almost."

Jim Wolf hopes his temporary job as a major league umpire will help him land one of the coveted 68 full-time positions. Wolf, 31, an El Camino Real High graduate, is a replacement umpire, filling in while other umpires take time off. He is working the Dodgers-Florida Marlins series this week at Dodger Stadium. "It's hard," said Wolf, a Triple-A Pacific Coast League umpire who is in his third year as a fill-in. "The odds are definitely against me, even though I'm still plugging away. "I'm close.