Well, it is official – I am no longer a true Maryland Men’s Basketball fan. From the 1969 start of Lefty’s tenure onward I have enjoyed (but mostly suffered) as a fan watching Maryland play. I have stayed with them through thick and thin and rejoiced when Gary Williams finally won us a National Title in 2002.
Following Gary’s retirement however in 2011, coupled with Maryland moving to the Big Ten, I began to lose interest in the program. I won’t discount my own slackening of sports mania but Maryland basketball just didn’t get it done for me anymore win or lose.
But last night officially sealed the deal: I chose to watch Jeopardy’s Battle of Champions instead of Maryland playing and beating Big Ten rival Ohio State in a big game televised nationally on ESPN. I am only a little dismayed to have to confess that I really have become an old fart Jeopardy watcher. And horrors of horrors, I am also a little dismayed to confess that I found the Jeopardy game kinda exciting. (Words I never thought I would type in my lifetime.)
In my defense, I did try flipping back and forth to the Terps’ game during the Jeopardy commercials. Ultimately though I stayed with Alex and the boys versus Turgeon and the Terps. For a good recap of the Jeopardy game (click here.) The article singles out how the contestants were able to breeze through a category dealing with triple rhymes by immediately coming up with answers like these:
Some of those clues I’m still trying to figure out!
A side story to all this Jeopardy GOAT business involves a sports betting site receiving a couple $500,000 bets on who would win the tournament which was taped last month. Because all of the huge bets were on the same contestant, the sports book suspected that the bettor had inside info on who had won and stopped taking bets (click here.) Ah, Jeopardy intrigue!
Speaking of It’s All Over Now, the Bobby Womack song by that name comes to mind. It was The Stones first Number 1 hit. Funny story how that came about:
After hearing “It’s All Over Now” by the Womack Brothers (aka the Valentinos) on the WINS show, the band recorded their version nine days later at Chess Studios in Chicago. Years later, Bobby Womack said in an interview that he had told Sam Cooke he did not want the Rolling Stones to record their version of the song, and that he had told Mick Jagger to get his own song. Cooke convinced him to let the Rolling Stones record the song. Six months later on, after receiving the royalty check for the song, Womack told Cooke that Mick Jagger could have any song he wanted. (From here.)