Bobby News Network here again just before the Final Round of
the National Spelling Bee 2004, with just TWELVE contestants left for tonight’s
rounds. (After a controversial computer test that whittled the field from 31 to
12 after the semifinal round, something that the bee has just recently been
doing that not everyone likes due to the sentimentality for live, in-your-face,
traditional spelling where speller has to spell the word up there on live
television). Anyway here on the (hypothetical) betting odds for chances to win
tonight:
Hathwar: 5 to 2 (the Mike Trout of this competition)
Venkatchalam: 6 to 1 (the Edwin Encarnacion- the hot hitter
that could easily slide in should the top falter)
Abiad: 8 to 1 (the
Max Scherzer- not the best player in fantasy, but rock solid)
Veeramani: 10 to 1 (the David Ortiz – the track record and
his demographics support a possible win)
Konakella: 10 to 1 (the Matt Carpenter- not very well known,
needs some stuff to go right)
Gibbison: 16 to 1 ( the Dee Gordon- the one-hit wonder)
Horton: 20 to 1 (Brandon Belt- maybe even better a year from
now)
Field (Others): 20 to 1
As betters would know, Hathram is a really prohibitive
favorite as 5 to 2 gives him almost a 40% chance of winning. Others might
disagree that it’s actually HIGHER now that preseason favorite (and my pick)
Vanya Shivashankar didn’t make it to the final, it’s now a clear track for the
Sriram Express. Taj Gibbison (seriously, I’m loving this guy’s name) gets a 16
to 1 because it’s been 16 years since a Jamaican won the National Spelling Bee,
so it could happen, it’s just difficult to predict for those guys cuz they have
a new representative each year, and there are some siblings that get some odds
because who knows how much of a leg up their siblings gave them.
As I was watching the semifinals today, however, one reason
why I love the NSB came to me: you’re watching really, really smart kids before
they’ve even fully developed. They’re going on to bigger and better things.
I googled a random assortment of
ex-speller’s names (mostly champions, but some non-champions) and colleges like
Cornell, Harvard, and Stanford came up. Anurag Kashyap went on to win a
Jeopardy. George Thampy works for the National Spelling Bee. A lot want to be
neurosurgeons; some actually do become neurosurgeons. These kids are smart, and
it certainly doesn’t hurt that “won the National Spelling Bee 2004” shows up on
their resume to set them apart from the crowd, but it’s certainly evidence that
these kids are motivated and eager. When we watch professional athletes, they
are at their absolute peak and winning championships, etc. It’s not gonna get
any better for them, they’re already at the top of their game. Lots of times it
gets significantly worse for those people when they step down from the
limelight, as we hear stories of bankruptcies, life-altering injuries, and
worse. But for National Spelling Bee participants, they’re only just getting
started, and the best awaits. It’s really refreshing to read about those
stories years later.
It’s also a purely merit-based competition. Think of
successful politicians, world leaders, businesspeople, the most powerful people
in the world. Yes, some of them built their company from scratch from their
garage. That’s pretty lucky. I’d say most of all the most powerful people in
the world had some connections, had political capital, was the right
demographic or had the right background, had the right parents, had the right
financial capacity, etc., to make it big (think George Bush, Paris Hilton,
etc.) These kids don’t. These kids literally have to study from scratch and
fill their minds with information from a very young age, and it takes a great
deal of determination especially nowadays with so many clubs, activities,
sports, and school things going on that spelling has been their life for a long
time. Yea you can be smart, but you also have to work really hard and refresh
your brain all the time to get to the level of some of these spellers. Lot of
time, lot of dedication, and for some, the possibility of it ultimately paying
off(see Rajeev Patel, Lauren Newcome, Finola Hackett, Matthew Evans, etc.,
etc., just to name a few recent ones as greatest spellers not to win the big
one)
With that said, I usually don’t have too much of a vested
interest in the Spelling Bee’s outcome, but tonight I’d like to see Sriram
Hathwar win the National Spelling Bee. Here’s a kid who’s been in the National
Spelling Bee since age 8, who knows when he started actually studying spelling
words at a competitive level, and every year he gets disappointed, but he gets
back up on his feet and keeps grinding. 7 years his season has ended in
disappointment and every year he’s come back more motivated than ever. His
written round to the finals showed it: he got the best score. He’s more
prepared than ever. He deserves it. Sriram for championship.
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
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