In the DECA Southern California District Career Development Conference, five Westview students won the DECA Glass, an award given to the top three in each event considering both performance and exam scores, Jan. 9-11. The competition, hosted in Costa Mesa, was the first of the year. Of the 46 Westview attendees, 26 were finalists, scoring in the top 10 for their performance or exam score in their event.

Evan Russo (12) and Jonah Reynolds (12) won first as a team in Sports and Entertainment Marketing Team Decision Making and vice president of finance Vamshi Krishna Ramasamy (10) placed second in Food Marketing Series. DECA co-president Sparsh Singhai (12) and Emi Chow (10) won third in Sports and Entertainment Marketing Series and Accounting Applications Series, respectively.

At this competition, Singhai competed in a new event, Sports and Entertainment Marketing, which gives a prompt of a business situation to market something related to sports and entertainment. Singhai marketed a live entertainment company by creating special merchandise and a monthly membership that gave access to special events. He had 10 minutes to prepare a roleplay in which he pitched a solution to a boss—the judge—then another 10 minutes to deliver it. 

While he had competed in the team version of the event before, as an individual, he had 20 less minutes of preparation time and five less minutes for the pitch.

“I was really surprised that I got third overall, because although I wasn’t expecting to do bad, I also wasn’t expecting to do this good,” Singhai said. “I think the reason I did well is that the preparation I did in my sophomore and junior years carried over to this year. Although my event was different, the public speaking skills still carried over, and I was still familiar with another event that is kind of like this new event, so it made everything easier.”

Russo and Reynolds participated in an event similar to Singhai’s, but as a team, where they were prompted to market a rodeo to a new audience. This was their second DECA competition and their first time working together, which Russo said made it difficult to develop a cohesive and creative plan. 

“We were [arguing] for the first 10 minutes,” Russo said. “I think our teamwork and our ability to work through things [were tested], because it was a very tough question to answer. After a certain point of fighting over the prompt, we realized we had to do this together, and we had the teamwork to be able to do it.”

To overcome their shorter prep time and niche prompt, Russo and Reynolds had to be creative.

“Our plan was very, very unique,” Russo said. “We used things like the Dallas Cowboys, southern college football teams, and mechanical bulls, which I would assume our other competitors didn’t do. We had a very detailed and thorough plan, and we both acted very passionate about rodeos. We felt good about our presenting.”

Ramasamy said he found confidence and creativity to be the most important parts of a performance, so he put more effort into those.

“[The roleplays] are about giving off confidence and being able to go a little bit in depth about it,” he said. “I think about real world examples, like a company similar to the one they give you to solve these issues.”

In the hours they had after their rounds, Singhai said he was able to spend more time with the other students.

“We went out to eat together, we went shopping at the mall together, and I was able to talk to the people I was rooming with at night,” Singhai said. “I appreciate the competitions and ranking, but what I really enjoyed was the connections I got to build with members of my club. Hanging out with them outside of a school setting [let me] connect with them on a deeper level.”

Russo agreed, saying that he and his roommates grew closer during the competition.

“At one point, we got a giant box of red vines and then [hit] Jonah with the red vines,” Russo said. “While hitting each other with Twizzlers may sound bad, in that moment, you really grow close to people. I think of Jonah as a brother now. There was a lot of bonding, especially within our room and overall in DECA through this experience.”

Chow said it was gratifying to see her teammates cheering each other on and improving as a team.

“It’s really fun to see how we all grow and how we go together,” she said. “At the award ceremony, it’s really rewarding when anyone from our school goes up, because we’re all able to celebrate together. I think that’s something really important, for [us] to be able to celebrate others’ successes in addition to our own.”

With DECA’s rocky start to the year after being nearly discontinued, Singhai said he was glad that the team had come so far.

“We had quite a late start to the year; however, our chapter and executive team worked really hard to prepare afterwards, and then we did really well as a chapter [at this competition],” he said. “I’m quite proud of the members of our chapter and the work they’ve put in and that we’ve exponentially improved since last year despite these obstacles.”