In yet another historic achievement for the Woodland Hills school, El Camino Real Charter High School (ECR) won its 11th United States Academic Decathlon National Championship title this weekend, the most of any school in the country.
The team of nine ECR students achieved a score of 52,987.3, more than 1,000 points ahead of their competition, and came home with 34 individual medals. They’ve also continued a now 22-year streak of a California school winning the championship.
Ashley Acosta, Enoch Chan, Darren Du, Brendan Luna, Bahar Mirzajanzadeh, Emily Simms, Yash Singhal, Leanne Warren and Zarah Zuhair were members of the team.
Receiving individual honors, Luna achieved the most points out of any student in the competition, and Singhal, Chan and Acosta placed in the top three within their respective divisions.
After winning the competition – held in Des Moines, Iowa – the team flew back home, where they were honored on their first day back at school on May 5 with a pep rally. Hundreds of students filled the bleachers at the track and football field, cheering for them as ECR Executive Director David Hussey congratulated the team.
“I was overwhelmed. I did not expect such a big display of people to come,” said Zuhair after the rally. “It’s just surreal. It’s like a community of people being able to understand how much effort we all put in and how grateful we are that we won. I really appreciated it. I felt like a celebrity.”
Although she is a senior, this was Zuhair’s first time competing in the academic decathlon. She said it was incredibly daunting at first, especially with the pressure of maintaining ECR’s academic reputation. The speech category, she found, was to be among the most stressful, as she thought she might not be able to perform well.
However, thanks to the support of her teammates and Head Coach Stephanie Franklin, Zuhair was able to push past any doubt to help them win the championship. Individually, she walked away with two medals, including a gold for the interview subject.
Reflecting on her time with the team, from the tryout period last summer to their recent win, Zuhair said it was “a life-changing journey. … Looking back, I don’t regret it at all. Sure, at times, there were moments where in the late nights of studying, I thought, ‘Why did I do this to myself? I should be out having fun with my friends, it’s my senior year.’
“But when you really push through and you work hard, and then you realize you can do this, and then it culminates into an award show like this and being able to celebrate with my teammates, it’s all worth it in the end.”
That sentiment was shared by her teammates and fellow seniors Simms and Warren. Simms described the journey between last summer and this past weekend as “relentless.” Now that the adrenaline from competing in the championship is wearing off, exhaustion is setting in. However, Simms was glad she and her team were able to earn their win.
Warren described the feeling as “bittersweet” – although enduring countless sleepless nights preparing for the decathlon is now over, so too is their time together as a team.
“It’s just kind of sad to see everyone go and move on to college and such,” Warren said. “But it’s a really fulfilling feeling to finally own something that shows how much work and dedication you put into it.”
This was also the first time competing in the decathlon for both Simms and Warren, and like Zuhair, it didn’t take long for them to feel the pressure of ECR’s academic reputation. Warren said a lot of people, even outside of California, were already expecting them to be the best. But being able to prove them right was “the best feeling in the world.”
For Simms, it was when other people knew her and her teammates by name and would stop them to ask them questions and say how excited they were to see them win. Although it increased the pressure, she expressed how great it felt to make everyone proud.
“It was very surreal to find out that everyone knows who we are, but we’re just a team of people who really love and care about each other,” Simms said. “We’ve seen each other do some dumb things. We’ve seen each other do some brilliant things. It was very out of this world to see that everyone knew exactly who we were and exactly what we would be bringing, and it was a very satisfying feeling to prove that.”
Now that their ECR decathlon journeys are over, the pair reflected on being honored by the school as they look ahead toward graduation.
“It’s really weird to just be standing up here with eight of the coolest and smartest people I’ve ever met, and I’m one of them,” Simms said. “It felt like the hard work I did was 100% recognized by everyone around me, and that’s a feeling I’ve never had before in my life. It’s insane to know that I get to carry that with me for a lot of years to come.”
“I always thought that I would just be a decathlete … but now it’s a historical moment that we’ve really worked towards and it’s just absolutely insane that I’ve made such a close bond with all of these people,” Warren said. “I’m just so proud that we were all able to do this all together and make it as a team and do our best.”