by Jesus Biag, co-Editor-In-Chief

St. John Bosco and St. Joseph’s Academic Decathlon team has never failed to put forward some great teams to compete on the local, national and international stage. But for the past couple of years, some surmised that the program was in decline. 

For years, Mr. Edgar Salmingo, former Vice Principal of Academic Affairs, served as the decathlon team’s coach. After he left St. John Bosco at the end of the 2021-2022 school year, however, a period of high coaching turnover ensued.

This was no more apparent than in this current year, where the Bosco Academic Decathlon team has seen multiple coaches in the same season—something unheard of for the program in years past. 

Ms. Drea Sanchez, a former teacher at St. Joseph’s, handled the program from the beginning of last school year to just about Spring break. She departed from the team over Spring break after coming to the difficult decision to switch careers and pursue nursing, a move that hurt the team.

“[Something] that was truly detrimental to the team was the lack of a stable teacher. [When Ms. Sanchez left] in the middle of our season, we kind of had to pilot ourselves for a while,” said senior decathlete Ben Garza.

While the coaching changes have been hard, Ben believes that it’s brought the team closer together.

“Because our team hasn’t had a permanent teacher in a few years, we have all sort of grown closer together. We realized that being cold to one another wouldn’t do us any good, especially if we would have to collaborate with one another to compete,” Ben said. “[We’ve] started to grow closer [because] most of us were returning competitors. This has helped our team chemistry tremendously. Almost all of us have gotten to interact and compete with one another, [which has led] to more synergy in our group.”

Ben believes this synergy will help the team tremendously, as they face off against the best the world has to offer.

Ms. Sanchez’s departure was the first coaching change of the year, and it couldn’t have come at a more crucial time. When she left, the team was preparing for the regional round of the World Scholars Cup, which was set to take place in Pasadena. Luckily for the decathlon team, they were able to find an extremely capable coach to take Ms. Sanchez’s place. 

Ms. Nicole Scalas stepped into the role of Head Decathlon Coach post-Spring break last school year. In addition to being the team’s new coach, she also served as St. Joseph’s Theology Department Chair, an English teacher and a child development teacher. 

Ms. Scalas guided Bosco and St. Joseph’s decathletes through the regional and international rounds. While dozens of Braves and Jesters compete during the regional round, numbers tend to shrink during the second round. This year, eight students from Bosco and St. Joseph’s competed in Stockholm, Sweden over Summer break. There, the team faced students from many other countries, such as Turkey, China and Kenya. 

Outside of the competition, one of Ms. Scalas’ favorite moments from the trip was touring Stockholm, which was very beautiful and green in the summertime. Although the team did their fair share of exploring, they came to Sweden to handle business—which they did.

The team, prepared by Summer months of studying and practicing, were able to secure several individual and team medals. Seniors Josue Sanchez and Ben Garza were two Braves that Ms. Scalas noted as top performers. 

One of the biggest things that the team learned from the quick staff turnover during the Spring and Summer months was a Japanese term called kintsugi. 

“[Kintsugi] means “to repair”—but by using gold to seal the cracks. [It makes] the ‘broken; item more beautiful,” said Ms. Scalas. “This team has been through quite a lot—with changes in coaching, teams being moved around, teams lacking all the members and a very difficult curriculum. But look what [they’ve] made!”

The team has truly made something beautiful with their strong teamwork, competitiveness and success. But with the final round, the Tournament of Champions, ahead, the team once again had to deal with coaching turnover.

This year, Ms. Scalas stepped into a bigger role as St. Joseph’s Director of Integration and Student Success, which meant she could no longer continue her role as Head Coach.

Despite this, she still maintains a strong support for the team. Part of that can be attributed to the fact that her daughter, Julia, a junior at St. Joseph’s, is a member of the team. 

The transition from coach to fan hasn’t really been too difficult for Ms. Scalas. The decathletes are all extremely capable, passionate and enthusiastic, so it made her job easy as a coach. She knows that the qualities they possess will make them incredibly successful during the Tournament of Champions—strongly believing that at least one of the teams will place in the top five.

While Ms. Scalas cheers on the Braves and Jesters from the sideline, new Bosco English teacher and alumnus of the Class of 2021, Mr. Joshua Hernandez, has stepped up to guide the team through the Tournament of Champions and beyond. 

The transition into his new coaching job was a little shaky at first. But he attributes Principal Mr. Ernest Antonelli, Assistant Principal of Academic Affairs Mr. Derrick Fernando, Dean of Academics Mrs. Elizabeth Hunt, Spiritual Director Father Mike Gergen and Assistant Coach Ms. Fatima Gutierrez-Castaneda for helping him make his adjustment. 

Mr. Hernandez has been especially grateful for senior Josue Sanchez, who’s helped maintain stability and become someone that Mr. Hernandez has built a connection with—keeping him in the know with recruiting new scholars and future plans. 

But Mr. Hernandez is extremely qualified for his new position because of his experience, which he believes will help him as a coach going forward. As a student, he competed in Academic Decathlon. In 2019, he received seven gold and three silver medals, notably placing 45th overall in Manila, where the global round was held in 2019, for writing and being in the top 45% of overall scholars.

At his own Tournament of Champions, Mr. Hernandez placed 155th overall in the debate and 415th in writing. This is incredibly impressive considering that roughly 2,500 scholars compete in this final round of the World Scholars Cup. 

Mr. Hernandez wants the decathletes to approach this final round as their championship game. But no matter the end result, Mr. Hernandez is proud of all the team has accomplished.

Above all, he sees this as the first step of restoring Academic Decathlon’s glory.  

“I am working really hard to make sure we can get this program back to where it was and really make it a staple on campus in the way Bosco Football is or extracurriculars like ASB and Ambassadors are,” said Mr. Hernandez.

A strong performance in the Tournament of Champions—which began yesterday and ends on November 20th at Yale University—will definitely help that goal.