Answers to last Wednesday's "Super Hard Sports Quiz"..

....and scores for the two respondents, Erin "The Sports Babe" and Tom "I Let A Girl Beat Me At A Sports Quiz"....


1. (5 points) I’ll start with an easy one. February 22, 2005 will be forever remembered in the annals of history for a historic dating event: the first date of Jerry Beckett and Lynda Lozano. 25 years earlier, on February 22, 1980, a historic sports event took place. What was it?

Answer: Winter Olympics, Lake Placid NY
Hockey Medal Round

USA 4
USSR 3

Miracle On Ice. One of the most amazing sports events, and upsets, in history.

Erin: 5 points
Tom: 0 points

2. (15 points) In the movie Rudy, Sean Astin (Rudy), Charles Dutton (Fortune the Groundskeeper), Ned Beatty (Rudy’s dad), Lilly Taylor (Rudy’s girlfriend), and Robert Prosky (Fr. Cavanaugh) all were established Hollywood actors and all filled major roles in the film. Jon Favreau, who played D-Bob, Rudy’s friend at ND, would later become a star in his own right in movies like “Swingers”, “Very Bad Things”, and host of other movie starring and co-starring credits. Many smaller roles were filled by various obscure actors and Notre Dame students, particularly the football team in the movie, which is comprised of almost entirely ND students. However, one player on the movie team, an unknown Hollywood actor at the time, has since gone on to be one of the bigger stars in Hollywood today (he co-starred in one of last summer's biggest box-office movies, and was in another popular summer movie in a supporting role). Who is he?

Answer: Vince Vaughn, who co-starred in Wedding Crashers and had a supporting role in Mr. & Mrs. Smith.

Erin: 15 points, 20 total
Tom: 15 points, 15 total

3. (5 points) Getting tickets to major sporting events can be both difficult and expensive. For which of these events, year after year, is it both the easiest and least expensive to get last minute (or last couple of days) tickets for?

Super Bowl ______

World Series Game ______

NBA Finals Game ______

NCAA Basketball National
Championship Game ______

College Football National
Championship Bowl Game ______

NHL Finals Game ______

Bonus (5 points): Why is it so easy/inexpensive to get tickets for this contest?

Answer: The NCAA Basketball National Championship Game. The tournament semi-finals are played on Saturday and the final on Monday night. Tickets for these games are generally sold to the competing schools’ fans as a package, a ticket each for the semi-final game and the final. However, two of the four teams playing on Saturday are eliminated, and their fans, more often than not, just want to pack up and head home. If you hang around outside the arena after the semi-final games, you can almost always get a final game ticket for face value, or even lower.

Question
Erin: 5 points, 25 total
Tom: 5 points, 20 total

Bonus (judgment call here; you both alluded to the right answer but didn’t fully spell it out…)
Erin: 3 points, 28 total
Tom: 3 points, 23 total

4. (10 points) Joe Montana quarterbacked the San Francisco 49ers to 4 Super Bowl championships in the 1980’s and is generally considered one of the finest quarterbacks to every play the game. Before his NFL career, Montana starred at Notre Dame, leading the Irish to the 1977 National championship and numerous come-from-behind victories, including the famous 1979 Cotton Bowl comeback win over Houston. However, which of the following is true of Montana’s college career?

_____ he was never once a 1st, 2nd, or 3rd team All-American
_____ he never received a single Heisman vote
_____ he was not a first round draft pick
_____ he neither holds nor set any Notre Dame passing record
__X__ all of the above
_____ none of the above

Erin: 10 points, 38 total
Tom: 10 points, 33 total

5. (20 points) The TV network ESPN Classic shows classic sports contests from years gone by. These games cover an expansive time span, from (for example) boxing in the 1940’s to baseball in the 1950’s to college football from the 70’s and 80’s to recent games. However, two games that get shown quite often happened on the same day: October 15, 1988. What two games were they, and why are they shown?

Answer:
Game 1: #4 Notre Dame 31, #1 Miami FL 30; At the time, college football’s most heated rivalry. The Irish rejoin the national elite, breaking Miami’s 36-game regular season winning streak.

Game 2: World Series, Game 1, LA Dodgers beat the heavily favored Oakland A’s on injured Kirk Gibson’s 9th inning home run. It is Gibson’s only at-bat during the series, won by the Dodgers in 5 games.

Erin: 20 points, 58 total
Tom: 20 points, 53 total

6. (15 points) From time to time, a professional sports franchise will leave a city and move to another......However, there is one professional sports franchise that neither can nor will ever move to another city. What is that team and why can’t/won’t they move?

Answer: The NFL’s Green Bay Packers, because they are owned by the city of Green Bay, WI.

Erin: 15 points, 73 total
Tom: 15 points, 68 total

7. (15 points) In 1984, guard John Stockton of Gonzaga and forward Charles Barkley of Auburn were both drafted in the first round of the NBA draft, Stockton by the Utah Jazz and Barkley by the Philadelphia 76ers. Both:
· were considered to be questionable picks (Stockton too slow and white, Barkley too small)
· enjoyed long careers – Stockton retired in 2003, Barkley in 2000.
· were perennial All-Stars.
· will be first-ballot Hall of Famers.
· were named to the NBA’s 50 All-Time Greatest Players list in 1997
· won gold medals as members of the 1992 and 1996 USA Olympic Basketball team
· never won an NBA championship
· led their teams to the NBA Finals (Stockton in 1997 and 1998, Barkley – with the Phoenix Suns – in 1993) only to lose to Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls in 6 games each time
However, there is one other distinction they share, an event that happened in 1984. What was it?

Answer: They were both cut from the 1984 Olympic team on the same day, and even shared a ride to the airport to go home.

Erin: 0 points, 73 total
Tom: 0 points, 68 total

8. (10 points) Many players in baseball learn little tricks to help certain umpire calls go their way. Catchers catch a pitch outside the strike zone and quickly jerk the glove into the strike zone to fool the ump. Outfielders will sometimes trap a ball against the ground (not an out) but then place the ball in the top part of the web of their glove (called “snowconing”) to make it appear as though they caught it for an out. The Chicago Cub outfielders, when playing in Wrigley Field, are taught to do something when the opposing batter hits a long shot to the outfield wall. What are they taught to do to fool the ump?

Answer: They are instructed to pretend to lose the ball in the ivy. Thus a triple or inside-the-park home run will be ruled a ground rule double.

Erin: 10 points, 83 total
Tom: 0 points, 68 total

9. Nicknames: Provide the nicknames for the following athletes (4 points each):

Basketball:
Larry Bird.........................................Larry Legend, or The Hick From French Lick
Earvin Johnson ................................Magic
Karl Malone......................................The Mailman
Jason Williams.................................White Chocolate
Gary Payton......................................The Glove

Baseball:
Randy Johnson.................................The Big Unit
Bill Lee..............................................Spaceman
Ted Williams.....................................Teddy Ballgame, or The Splendid Splinter
Joe DiMaggio....................................Joltin’ Joe, or (the one I had in mind) The Yankee Clipper
Frank Thomas...................................The Big Hurt

Football:
Billy Johnson......................................White Shoes
Kenny Stabler.....................................The Snake
Javon Kearse......................................The Freak
Deion Sanders.....................................Neon, or Primetime
Walter Payton.....................................Sweetness

Team and Unit Nicknames:

1960’s – 1970’s Minnesota Vikings Defense...........The Purple People Eaters
1970’s Pittsburgh Steelers Defense........................The Steel Curtain
1970’s Dallas Cowboys Defense............................Doomsday
University of Houston men's basketball
teams of 1982-'83 and '83-'84...............................Phi Slamma Jamma
1982 Milwaukee Brewers.....................................Harvey’s Wallbangers (after the owner)

Erin: 17 right, 68 points, 151 total
Tom: 15 right, 60 points, 128 total

10. Match these well-known figures of entertainment and politics with their sports backgrounds (2 points each):

Actor John Wayne..................................d. football lineman at USC

Actor Mark Harmon...............................h. quarterback at UCLA

Actor Dean Cain.....................................e. defensive back at Princeton

Actor and Comedian Bob Hope...............g. professional boxer (fought under the name “Packy East”)

President George W. Bush.......................c. cheerleader at Yale

President Gerald Ford ............................a. football lineman at Univ. of Michigan

President Ronald Reagan........................i. radio sports announcer

Congressman J.C. Watts..........................j. quarterback at Univ. of Oklahoma

Senator Bill Bradley.................................f. All-American basketball player at Princeton, won NBA title with NY Knicks

Senator Tom Osbourne............................b. Coached U. of Nebraska to 3 national championships


Erin: 8 right, 16 points, 167 total out of 200 (Outstanding!!!)
Tom: Didn’t answer, 128 total out of 200 (Embarrassment to Maleness!!!)

__________________________________________________

As I mentioned when I posted the quiz, I created it for my girlfriend last fall, mostly for fun. Of course, about now she's probably thinking:

____ "Is this what I'm going to have to put up with the rest of my life?"
____ "It's OK...he'll spend a lifetime of answering my trick questions, like 'What are you thinking?', "Does this outfit make me look fat?', 'Do you think that woman is pretty?', etc....
____ "Oh, well, at least he cleans up the dirty dishes in his sink...Oh, no, wait, he doesn't do that either..."
____ "I wonder if my eHarmony.com account is still open?"