As frequent vistors here know, I would argue that competent citizens should be sufficiently aware of cultural history to know who Bill Russell, Bob Feller and Bob Gibson are at very least. The elderly female contestant was alive and conscious while Bob Gibson and Bill Russell were active and frequently in the news. Surely someone presuming to appear as a contestant on “Jeopardy!” should have this level of U.S. sports history knowledge.
But perhaps you disagree…
Ethics Alarms 
Disgrazia! I had to hide my eyes, it was so cringe!
As mentioned in previous replies of mine here, Bob Gibson is my childhood hero, so I just can not fathom someone not knowing these guys, let alone those that think they are a trivia whiz to go on Jeopardy. Especially two grown men!! I’ll give a pass for the goalie’s question, but…
Here we are, back to family themes again and I blame their sports voided upbringing. It’s damn near inconceivable they stiffed all but one of those questions.
Can’t wait to show this to my son and daughter. Stoolies, they.
Stumped me on that last one, but I bet Arthur in Maine had it in no time flat…
PWS
I’ve never been a hockey fan, but Gump Worsley was unforgettable. The last NHL goalie to play without a mask, I believe. And boy, did he look it!
Got 3 out of 5. But I refuse to watch basketball and hockey was never on when I grew up in Mexico.
I was stumped on the hockey goalies, but got the rest of them. This happens on occasion on Jeopardy…this “all the contestants are blanked” on all the questions in a category. It’s the second time I’ve seen it happen. The last time was a few years back, also in a sport-related category.
But it is no fun to watch, and I wager it’s embarrassing for the contestants.
I sure hope so. Ken was not sympathetic.
I have never really been a sports fan. Almost every experience with sports has been depressing or abusive (or both). I find very few redeeming characteristics in team sports and so I don’t watch them.
Some examples:
(1) I tried to get on a Little League team. A local pastor decided to start a team, but he cancelled it without telling us why. My father told me. The pastor found out that the Little League had tryouts and they were all rigged. The good players all sandbagged so only the coaches ‘in the know’ would know who the good players were. This created ‘super teams’ and the rest were hopelessly outmatched. The pastor decided he couldn’t put the kids through that.
(2) In 5th grade, the Jr. High coaches came by and lined all the boys up. They chose the biggest and strongest who were invited to start working out at the Jr. High. They started getting them to work out and gave them steroids.
(3) I tried out for track and was one of the fastest long distance runners in the tryouts. I wasn’t picked because the coach felt that I wouldn’t sacrifice my education and my grades for the track team (he was right).
(4) In high school, the coaches forbid the athletes to bring books to study on the long bus rides to and from games. They insisted the players ‘keep their heads in the game’.
(5) In college, I watched athletes routinely assault people and commit other crimes (including shooting at police officers) and get away with it because they were athletes. The athletes routinely cheated in their classes, abetted by the coaches, and that is when they bothered to take a real class. In some schools, the athletes were given degrees even when they didn’t meet the degree requirements.
(6) I have watched students get concussions, destroy their knees, and be forced to play with potential cracked vertebrae. I had a student who received a concussion in practice and didn’t remember the previous day, but the coach told him not to seek medical attention because he wouldn’t be able to compete that weekend. A student was forced to play offensive lineman with a broken fibula. On the first play, his tibia cracked and became embedded in the turf. He had been forbidden by the doctor to play, but the coach threatened his scholarship.
(7) I have had students who were forced into sexually compromising situations by their sports and the only advice I could give them is to drop out and get a job to pay for college. They had no evidence and their scholarships would have been revoked by the coaches for making such a complaint.
(8) When my son wanted to participate in sports, every instance was abusive. The last was the least physically abusive, but it was quite mentally abusive. He realized the abuse each time and left.
I have not seen athletics improve anyone’s attitudes or make them admirable human beings except when that happened as a result of the abuse athletics piled on them. I have seen it make people commit terrible acts and feel they are entitled to it because of their status as athlete. I do not feel bad that I do not know trivia about sports players.
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