{"id":82387,"date":"2019-04-08T17:07:17","date_gmt":"2019-04-08T17:07:17","guid":{"rendered":"\/rcntv\/?p=82387"},"modified":"2023-04-13T15:28:27","modified_gmt":"2023-04-13T15:28:27","slug":"won","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.astound.com\/atvn\/won\/","title":{"rendered":"I WON!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong>The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of RCN or any other agency, organization, employer or company.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>My hope here is that you never get past the title and you have the impression that I actually won something.\u00a0 That is so far from the truth.\u00a0 I not only lost.\u00a0 I lost badly.<\/p>\n<p>With all of the upsets in the <a title=\"NCAA\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ncaa.com\/march-madness\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NCAA<\/a> tournament, I can write this BEFORE the final game is played and tell you, once again, I was embarrassed by my results in the RCN bracket pool (for entertainment purposes only).<\/p>\n<p>The problem is, because I am the Sports Director, everyone expects me to do well and everyone seems to take great pleasure in beating me.\u00a0 There are some (mostly women) who take even greater pleasure in my inability to appear to know anything about college basketball.<\/p>\n<p>Against the RCN employees, I finished 17<sup>th<\/sup> out of 48.\u00a0 I know that doesn\u2019t sound so bad, but you have to understand, I was doing quite well up to the quarterfinals and could not keep my mouth.\u00a0 I felt this was a good time to brag.\u00a0 I sent out a blanket email to all the female nemeses (yes, that is the plural of nemesis \u2013 I looked it up) who berated me throughout past tournaments to rub in the fact that I was beating them all.\u00a0 And then the quarterfinal games were played.\u00a0 My drop in the standings was a freefall.<\/p>\n<p>I ended up being beaten by Lori, the head of HR (what do they know about sports?); by Alyssa from the studio, who almost treats me with respect (I need to keep her away from the others); by Sandy of the business department, who to her credit, is almost too nice to belittle my ineptness; and Laura who beats me every year and cannot wait to literally rub as much salt into the wound as possible and tends to announce her superiority to anyone who will listen.\u00a0 Thank goodness I am at the studio and do not have to withstand what would be constant ridicule by the entire office staff in our other building.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking of the studio, on the good side, I finished second among the players from the RCN studio.\u00a0 On the really bad side, there were only two players from the studio (remember Alyssa), so second, also, turns out to be dead last.<\/p>\n<p>Maurice won the pool even before the championship game was played.\u00a0 No one came within 20 points of him.\u00a0 He beat me by a whopping 53 points.\u00a0 I do not know Maurice very well, but here\u2019s hoping he has no interest in becoming the RCN Sports Director.<\/p>\n<p>So if you read this far, you now know that, for this particular blog, the title was very misleading and I became part of the FAKE NEWS movement.\u00a0 I won nothing!\u00a0 Usually I would thank you for reading my blog, but for this particular one, thanks for nothing!<strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>ABOVE THE EARS (SOME MUSINGS)<\/strong><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>I am anticipating a sleepy day on Tuesday. With the NCAA championship game starting at 9:20pm, it will be a late night for most sports fans.\u00a0 Now, I usually stay up to @11:30pm anyway and arise at 6:25am.\u00a0 I will probably lose about an hour sleep if I want to watch the award ceremony and wait for \u201cOne Shining Moment\u201d.\u00a0 Plus, Charles Barkley makes me want to watch the postgame analysis.\u00a0 He just makes me laugh.\u00a0 So, unlike the other half of the country, the rest of us must suck it up on Tuesday morning.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ol start=\"2\">\n<li>I thoroughly enjoyed watching the Women\u2019s National Championship game on Sunday between <a title=\"Notre Dame Women's Basketball\" href=\"https:\/\/und.com\/index.aspx?path=wbball\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Notre Dame<\/a> and <a title=\"Baylor Women's Basketball\" href=\"https:\/\/baylorbears.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Baylor<\/a>. For one thing, the game started at 6:00pm and was over by 8:30pm (see #1 above).\u00a0 For another, the talent level was amazing, and, just like the men, the game came right down to the end.\u00a0 Both coaches were a treat to watch.\u00a0 Good for the women!!<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ol start=\"3\">\n<li>With gambling now legal, more stories come out, usually from Las Vegas,concerning the big sporting events. It seems in November, a man who did not want to be identified, placed a wager at the Superbet for $1500 for <a title=\"Texas Tech\" href=\"https:\/\/texastech.com\/splash.aspx?id=splash_8&amp;path=mbball\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Texas Tech<\/a> to win the NCAA National Championship.\u00a0 The odds were 200-1.\u00a0 He wanted to place more money on the game, but the site would not take any more, limiting their risk.\u00a0 If Texas Tech wins, he will win $300,000.\u00a0 The <a title=\"Dallas Cowboys\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dallascowboys.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Cowboys\u2019<\/a> Dez Bryant offered to buy his ticket before the game is played for $125,000.\u00a0 The offer was not accepted.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ol start=\"4\">\n<li>Every baseball fan knew the NL East was going to be super competitive and the early results bear that out. The <a title=\"Philadelphia Phillies\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/phillies\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Phillies<\/a>, the <a title=\"New York Mets\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/mets\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Mets<\/a>, and the <a title=\"Washington Nationals\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/nationals\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Nationals<\/a> are all off to a terrific start.\u00a0 The shocker so far is how badly the <a title=\"Boston Red Sox\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/redsox\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Red Sox<\/a> are faring.\u00a0 Remember, it\u2019s a marathon!<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ol start=\"5\">\n<li>On Sunday, April 14, I will be emceeing a night of recognition for two great Lehigh Valley Morning Call sports\u2019 reporters, Paul Reinhard and Keith Groller. The two have combined for almost 100 years of tireless sports reporting.\u00a0 And, on the same night, RCN\u2019s Scott Barr will be inducted into the <a title=\"Lehigh Valley Wrestling Hall of Fame\" href=\"http:\/\/lehighvalleywrestlinghistory.com\/features-stories-more\/district-xi-wrestling-hall-fame\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Lehigh Valley Wrestling Hall of Fame<\/a>.\u00a0 I wish I could also be there.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of RCN or any other agency, organization, employer or company. My hope here is that you never get past the title and you have the impression that I actually won something.\u00a0 That is so&#8230;<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"Yoast SEO Relevanssi index exclude","inline_featured_image":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-behind-the-mic"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>I WON! - ATVN<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"I WON! - ATVN\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of RCN or any other agency, organization, employer or company. 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