Park City High School

Park City High School is a perennial favorite in the Utah State competition. They have captured more state championships than any other school from the state, with ten of the past 12 state titles. Until the 2008-09 season, Park City's team was coached by John Mark Krenkel, famed for his success within the program and his mustache. Following Krenkel's retirement, Edward Potts and Matthew Nagel undertook the coaching responsibilities. In the 2008 state competition, Park City broke the standing state record for highest team score, with 45,359 points. It is generally acknowledged that Park City is among the coolest teams competing on a national stage, and certainly the most attractive.

1988-2005

In the early years of Utah's Academic Decathlon program, the state competition was quite competitive between Alta, Brighton, and Park City. The only medium-sized school of the so-called "big three," the school did well to win a plurality of the contests in the first 10 years. In 1993, Park City won the Western States National Championship. California, as overall National Champions, were removed from the regional competition. When Nationals was broken down into divisions based on size, Park City was placed in Division II and enjoyed only moderate success on the international stage, placing 3rd in the Division on occasion, but never better.

2006

In 2006, Park City was placed for the first time in Division III as one of the larger schools in the category. They were able to win their inaugural year in the division with 40,373 points, beating Northwest Pennsylvania Collegiate Academy for the title. The team also landed its first spot in Speech Showcase in 8 years; Yazmeen Hussein got second in the honors division of the competition for her speech about the cultural difficulties of her last name. The team also failed to get onto the roof for a bonfire, spelled Dan's nickname "DemiDic" on a sweatshirt, and procured large quantities of cake and sombreros.

2007

The next year, they failed to defend their title, losing to Madison Academic (of Tennessee) by a mere 23.3 points. As a matter of interest, they were likely the closest team ever to getting disqualified from the national finals, after USAD authorities caught them in the act of the heinous act of throwing paper planes from their balcony. That was a total bummer.

2008

At the 2008 National Finals, Park City took second place overall in the Super Quiz Oral contest, 1 point behind champions Moorpark. Due to a malfunction in technology used by the competition runners, it was not apparent that the underdog team was in the running for an overall prize. The surprise announcement of their placement was therefore recieved very warmly, the whole crowd pleased with a "Cinderella story" to cheer for. Said a key analyst, "Oh man, you should have been there. It was so awesome."

Overall, they placed second in D III once again, but had the highest scoring student in the division and the top overall scholastic in the country.