Back to the Line of Scrimmage

When I was a new teacher in 1974, some young male colleagues came up with the idea of having a faculty football pool which was designed to pick the winning teams each week. Now these guys were rabid fans and knew the teams, the players and their injuries, the coaches, the odds, etc. Nevertheless, everybody knows that there’s a lot of pressure to pony up for the office pool or be considered a poor sport – even if you know squat about football. Well, I soon realized that these gamesters figured out that the majority of women on the faculty knew little about the game and were pigeons waiting to be plucked. We all kicked in our three dollars and guessed at the outcome of the games. WELL, lo and behold, a Special Ed female teacher won the first round!! On Monday morning, I was surprised to see what poor sports the guys were. They groused, grumped, and complained loudly to each other that she was just lucky and didn’t have a clue about the picks [probably true]. But she won and walked off with the money. Interestingly enough, the guys won their share throughout the season, but not any more than anyone else. Guess there’s a lot more luck in prognosticating than we realize!