Rumors that Bill Burrus plans to change his name to Santa Claus are false.
Bill has been conducting an unintentional one-man clothing giveaway in recent weeks.
The Commonwealth decided to spice up its weekly football picks contest this year by adding Bill to the contest. Each week, Bill selects the winners of 12 games. Entrants who pick more winners than Bill earn a beautiful “I Beat Bill” T-shirt, which has a magnificent photo of Bill on the back. Those winners are also entered in the Commonwealth’s $1,000 giveaway. The person whose name is drawn at the end of the season will win $1,000.
Before the contest started, I expected that few contestants would be able to beat our gridiron guru. I also didn’t think I could join the fun. Then I learned that Commonwealth staff members and contest sponsors can enter the contest. But we’re ineligible for the $1,000 prize.
I promptly entered the contest three weeks ago and won. I was among 78 people who beat Bill that week. He even lost to his son, Thomas.
My triumph wasn’t exactly a victory for the ages: Bill went 5-7, and I was 6-6. But a win is a win.
Two weeks ago, Bill improved to 8-4, but was still beaten by 43 people. I wasn’t one of them
Last week was the worst one yet for Bill. He went 4-8 and was beaten by a record 80 people.
Yes, the Commonwealth has had to order more “I Beat Bill” T-shirts.
I wasn’t one of the pickers who beat him last week, unfortunately. I forgot to enter the contest.
I’m not certain that it would have mattered. I’ve been competing for years in a football pool put on by one of my college roommates (for entertainment purposes only). I tied for last with a disgraceful 11-14 record.
Predicting the outcomes of football games is difficult. It’s even difficult when you’re picking the games against the betting spread. Fortunately for America’s gambling organizations, legal and illegal, there are millions of degenerate gamblers who love to try to do that.
Besides the football contest, Bill participates in the staff football picks that run in Friday’s paper. I haven’t been keeping up to see whether he picks the same teams he chooses in the football contest. Sports Writer Calvin Stevens leads Bill by three games entering this weekend’s play.
The weekly picks competition is more difficult, at least in my mind, because our pigskin prognosticators also predict the outcomes of high school games.
When I worked in Valdosta, Ga., the newspaper didn’t have staff football picks. Instead, the sports editor wrote a weekly column predicting the outcomes of games. I was always amazed by how many readers took that column seriously.
He tried to be “funny” when making his picks. And it seemed like every time he made a snarky pick about a game involving an area team, I was the reporter assigned to cover that game.
One week, nearby Clinch County High School was playing Blackshear, which happened to be sports editor’s alma mater. He predicted that Blackshear, which was a much larger school than Clinch County, would win 35-0.
The Clinch County faithful were angry at the Valdosta Daily Times and all of its representatives when I arrived for the game. The radio crew, which I was seated next to, devoted much of the game broadcast talking about “trash in the newspaper” and “the idiot” who wrote it.
Clinch County soundly defeated Blackshear, naturally. When I interviewed Clinch County’s coach, he made it clear that he had not been entertained by that predictions column. He did, however, thank the sports editor for giving his team extra motivation.
Clinch County would go on to be the source of one of my favorite headlines. After Clinch County defeated Appling County in a playoff game, the headline on the story read, “Clinch feasts on Appling turnovers.”
While I was at the then-Morning Advocate in Baton Rouge, the sports section ran staff picks each week. I immediately attracted attention inside and outside the Advocate office for picking against LSU. Some of my co-workers thought that Louisiana’s second- largest daily shouldn’t do anything but lead cheers for LSU.
Things got chippy outside of the office, too. My then-wife went to the dry cleaners to pick up some clothes. The cashier looked at the name on her check and said:
“Corder? Are you related to that guy in the paper who keeps picking against the Tigers? What’s the matter with him?”
Afterward, my wife found a new dry cleaner.
I have already won one “I Beat Bill” T-shirt in the Commonwealth football contest. But I can’t quit yet because I have two daughters.
Christmas is coming up in a couple of months, you know.
• Contact Charles Corder at 581-7241 or ccorder@gwcommonwealth.com.
