“No one expected Belmont to excel in the decathlon—except maybe the Belmont team members themselves.
After Belmont came in third, varsity member Evelyn Zepeda said, “Your school doesn’t matter. If you put your mind to it, believe in yourself and in others, you can achieve anything.”
But the truth is your school does matter to some degree. The amount of money and support your school can offer, and your school’s reputation, can impact your performance. Over at my school, Marshall, we were expecting to get tough competition from El Camino (which came in first) and Palisades High, but not from Belmont. Sure, they came in 6th last year, but no one expected them to do as well as they did. Since Belmont is my school’s rival, at first I was mad, but then I kind of felt proud and I started rooting for the underdogs.
When I went to see the team, several members were playing chess, since their coach Mr. Kim had taken all the games off the computers. One student had his arm around another (they met through the decathlon) while others leaned back on the black tables of Mr. Kim’s chemistry lab.
The team, which is composed of two seniors, three juniors and four sophomores, has been preparing for the tests since September. Under the direction of Mr. Kim, they studied from period six until 10 or 11 at night including weekends. They have spent so much time together that now they seem like a family.
“When I’d go home early, my mom would say, ‘Why are you home?'” said Adam Polsz.
Besides learning ten subjects at college level, the team has gained a lot from being in the competition.
“Headaches,” volunteered honors member Adam.
“Sleep deprivation and malnutrition,” said Alex Lee, who was honored as the top scoring varsity student in the competition. “We got to know the janitors really well. Adam got disowned and he gave up his right toe,” he joked.
Ricardo Bernal (a sophomore) got together with Kallin Tea (a senior). “That was pretty cool,” he said, giving her a little kiss.
The team has lots of good memories. Like the time when they got locked out of the computer room where they had all their stuff.
“There is a secret place where the teachers keep the key to the computer lab. I went to check there and the key wasn’t there,” said Mr. Kim. The team joked about how they tried to break into the computer room through a vent. But they ended up going to a teammates house to study.
They also learned some pragmatic stuff: like you can’t raise much money selling teachers lunch. They learned this when they decided to have a fund raiser on a pupil-free day. They collected money from the teachers and in turn they were going to provide them with lunch. They started out with 200 to 300 lunches. By the end, they had to order and distribute 500 to 600 lunches—teachers ate late or not at all. They had to give refunds.
“You don’t want to see a hungry teacher,” said Alex. They’re still raising money for team. “Yeah, make the checks out to Belmont Decathlon Team, in care of Alex Lee,” Alex joked.
Then there was the time when Kallin threw away Sunny’s shoes with some orange peels and they had to drive back to the gas station to pick them out of the trash. And the time when Adam nearly missed the essay portion of the test.
A truly humble Coach of the Year
During the awards, Mr. Kim was honored as coach of the year (along with Richard Erdman of Venice High). He was really modest when I asked him what the award meant to him.
“It is a great honor because it is not an award for myself. It is for everyone who helped out,” said Mr. Kim, “It is good to see making sacrifices paid off. It is nice to get the recognition.” (See article below on the HIPP enrichment program that helped Belmont excel.)
As for the food, well, let’s just say they are now experts in fast food. Alex said that it was better than last year when their diet was composed of Whoppers and water. Along with feasting on fast food, they also had a taste of Mr. Kim’s breakfast and salad.
“I would go get food when I saw color leaving Kallin’s face around 4:30 or 5,” said Mr. Kim.
Mr. Kim has only been coaching for five years and during the last five years Belmont’s decathlon team has improved a lot.
“He has aged a lot,” Kathleen joked.
Each of the decathletes have their own reason for doing decathlon. But all the undergraduates are coming back next year but Mr. Kim is not so sure.
Alex said, “Let me end with this quote, ‘…The self is not something one finds, it is something one creates.'””