Guess the Score, Win Stuff: Pure Do Comment Count

Seth

Basketballguessthescore-purdue

Spring of 1989 was the semester we switched from playing football during recess at Quarton Elementary School, to hoops. A particularly muddy field that spring made this the sane thing to do. Upside: you get in less trouble when you don't come home from school covered in mud. Downside: the best athlete in the class* was staunchly against it since he was also the 2nd shortest guy in the class, and under the Universal Rules Regarding the Governorship of Boys in the 3rd Grade the best athlete gets to decide which game we play. What finally changed "I'm Tony Boles" to "I'm Rumeal Robinson"† was twofold: the Pistons went to the NBA Finals and were on their way to another, and then this happened:

By fall the spell was broken and some kid got bloodied pretty badly by falling on the pavement and the recess calls were back to "I'm Desmond Howard!" We were off to middle school by the time the Fab Five arrived. But for a time in '89 the only thing on anybody's minds was "wow when did Michigan basketball get so good?". I wonder what made me think of that.

* Ironically that kid who gave me a blue Michigan football for my birthday, then announced we can't play with any other ball ever again, ended up a mouthy walk-on on MSU's 2000 championship team. And a nice guy, for a Spartan.

† I was always Vinnie "The Microwave" Johnson until some other kid started fighting me for it and I switched to Mark Aguirre.

How it works:

  1. Wednesdays I put up a winnable prize that consists of a desirable good.
  2. You guess the final scores of this weekend's designated game (football or hoops, depending on the season), and put it in the comments. First person to post a particular score has it.
  3. If you got it right, we contact you. If not, go to (5)
  4. The desirable good arrives at the address you give us.
  5. Non-winners can acquire the same desirable good by trading currency for it.

About Last Time:

Senator went with "84-75 Blue" and wins a t-shirt with a bicycle built for two. Warning from jocular_jock:

"I am a structural engineer and I know that that bicyle [sic] on the shirt has a flexural hinge waiting to happen. I could not wear the shirt in my right mind without modifying it."

This Week's Game:

Michigan versus Purdue tomorrow night. I'm Trey Burke!

And the Prize:

tshirt

Look soft? It is soft. It's tri-blend, so it feels like you've been breaking it in since "Michigan Man" became a thing, except this time your mom won't rip it up and use it for rags.

Normally I post a prize from the MGOSTORE, but this week I thought I'd expand a bit outside our corner and highlight an important partner of this site: Underground Printing and Moe's, without whom we don't have a store, we don't have a book, and Brian Cook is some kind of computer engineer with a blogspot page. Other than MGoShirts, their calling card is those comfy retro tees.

This I appreciate, since my actual vintage 1989 Michigan basketball shirt was a tattered rag by 1993. Oh it would fit; my generation was fortunate to come upon the "wear everything three sizes too large" fashion period when we were still growing. By the time clothes were meant to fit again, ours did, even if the hyper color was washed out.

Fine print: One entry per user. First user to choose a set of scores wins, determined by the timestamp of your entry (for my ease I prefer if you don't post it as a reply to another person's score--if you do it won't help or hurt you). Deadline for entries is 24 hours before the start of the game. MGoEmployees and Moderators exempt from winning. We did not invent the algorithm. The algorithm consistently finds Jesus. The algorithm tore its ACL. The algorithm is banned in China. The algorithm is from Jersey. The algorithm goes on 20-6 runs out of halftime.aachen. This is not the algorithm. This is close.

Comments

1989 UM GRAD

January 23rd, 2013 at 11:01 AM ^

Seth, my daughter is currently at Quarton and my son is now a Quarton graduate.

Funny that you bring up basketball at recess.  My son brought his basketball to school every day when he was in 5th grade.   He'd play the role of either Trey Burke or Brandon Knight.

Seth

January 23rd, 2013 at 11:22 AM ^

Tell your daughter to give my regards to the Bears!

My mom literally wrote the book about the sculptor, Marshall Fredericks--same guy who did the Spirit of Detroit, and the mural sculpture outside Bentley, and that eagle at the Stadium and Main entrance to the Big House...

He's an 009'er as well; his studio was on Quarton Lake--if you take your daughter skating there you can see the sculpture garden from the lake.

Did you go with Derby or Covington?

Seth

January 23rd, 2013 at 3:02 PM ^

Most people are like "I know your dad" since he was the guy who started the phone call with the superindendants to decide if they're canceling school for snow days or not. I can't tell you how popular it made me around school when West Bloomfield, Farmington Hills, Bloomfield Hills, Troy, Southfield, and Berkeley got a snow day (for what turned out to be just an inch or two) while all of Birmingham had classes.

Mabel Pines

January 23rd, 2013 at 7:50 PM ^

Your Dad would be super popular with my kids up here, too, if he made the right call.  My kids are still waiting for their first snow day.  B'ham never had snow days...   Nope, Mom didn't mention your Dad, but she spoke very highly of your Mom and your bros and sis, too!  (

Seth

January 23rd, 2013 at 10:52 PM ^

Well now the phone call includes the superintendents for most of Oakland County and I think my brother is running it, after the other guy in the office (father of a previously profiled member of the U-M Nat Champion Solar Car team) handled the call for years.

It started because my dad called John Hoeffler one morning and asked if they're closing schools and he was like "hold on let me go walk my dog" because literally the way that was decided is John would walk his dog at 5:30 in the morning and see what the streets look like. So since my father dealt with super-accurate weather guys every morning (weather is a big deal to agricultural markets apparently) he set up a conference call with them and John. After B'ham looked smart a few times (and my dad's partner's kids didn't have school when we did) other districts got on the conference call. They still do it.

Seth

January 23rd, 2013 at 4:01 PM ^

Okay I cheated and looked at your email address because you had to be in my brother Ben's class.

Do you remember a soccer coach who smoked cigars on the sidelines because he thought he was Vince Lombardi, and would yell out fake plays like "Blue Jumbo"?