Strange dropdown list behavior on page load

I have a page with 14 dropdown lists. In the first page load (ie. not isPostback) I set the selectedIndex of the dropdownlists individually but I find that they are all set to the value I use for the last dropdownlist set. Here is the code
comboFirstJudge1.SelectedIndex = 0
comboFirstJudge2.SelectedIndex = 0
<so on for all the dropdown lists until the last one>
comboFirstJudge14.SelectedIndex = 4
The result is that all dropdown lists have SelectedIndex = 4. If I run the same code on a postback it works just fine (the first lists have SelectedIndex = 0 and the last one = 4).
I do not understand what is going on. Any help is greatly appreciated.
TIA,
John

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