They were the best and the brightest, flashing broad victory grins as they posed for cameras after winning the Illinois Academic Decathlon.
One month later, team members have shed tears of humiliation in the principal's office and others have spoken of suicide. One teacher has resigned under fire and two more are being questioned. There even is talk of criminal charges over the cheating scandal at Steinmetz High School."I didn't cheat - I won my medal fair and square," Eric Krysiak, a 17-year-old member of the Academic Decathlon team, insisted Wednesday.
"I feel violated," said Krysiak, a senior who wants to be a genetic researcher. "This has been going down for a month, so of course it brings me down. But life goes on. In six months, no one will remember my name."
Authorities say a student stole the test a week before the competition, and confessions from several students leave no doubt that cheating by the Steinmetz team was widespread. They say one student even posed as a judge and gave top marks to a schoolmate.
The scandal has riveted Chicago for a month. In a radio interview Wednesday, Cardinal Joseph Bernardin called it "a sign that integrity is not given all that high a priority today, personal and collective integrity."
Steinmetz won the March 11 Illinois Academic Decathlon, a daylong series of oral and written exams that tests students' knowledge in 10 areas, from math and science to the fine arts. About 5,000 students competed in similar competitions nationwide.
The trouble began two days after the competition, when a Steinmetz student gave his English teacher an essay titled "Confession."
It said: "The following story is true. The names have been somewhat changed to protect the inno - heck, the names have been changed to protect me."
The essay told of cheating during the March 11 competition, encouraged by a teacher whose name resembled that of Steinmetz coach Gerard Plecki. The next day, after meeting with Steinmetz principal Constantine Kiamos, the student said his essay was fiction. Kiamos called it "a tall tale."
On March 16, Decathlon officials told the team it would have to take a "validation test." Steinmetz scored 49,500 of a possible 60,000 points in the championship round - 9,400 points more than it had scored in the regionals. Officials also said that of the 12 students nationwide who scored more than 900 on the math test, six were from Steinmetz - and four of those were B or C students.
On March 22, the team refused to take the second test and was stripped of its title. The same day, Steinmetz graduate Angela Lam said the team cheated in 1994. Two days later, Plecki admitted giving test answers to students in 1994 but denied cheating in 1995.
The Chicago school board opened an investigation, and Plecki resigned March 29 after board attorney Jerome Marconi warned him that he would be fired.
Last Friday, the Chicago Tribune published portions of the essay "Confession," which said that a student had posed as a judge.
Decathlon attorney Patricia Refo says a Steinmetz teacher who was a judge saw a Steinmetz student posing as a judge but didn't report it. She quoted him as saying the student wore the name tag of another Steinmetz teacher who was supposed to be a judge but was absent.
Several students, with their parents present, tearfully gave details of the cheating Tuesday, said Marconi, the school board attorney.
Marconi said a student apparently stole the test from a copying room at the DeVry Institute, which provides scholarships to Decathlon-winning schools. He said the test found its way to Plecki, who gave it to team members.
Marconi is preparing a report to Cook County State's Attorney Jack O'Malley, who will determine if criminal charges are warranted.
The school board plans no punishment for the team members, Marconi said, because they already have suffered from the widespread publicity.