Full-Court Press
MY heart was broken after realizing Bobby Curran wasn't going to give me a call to be a part of the ultimate trivia challenge played last night at Murphy's Bar and Grill. Who wants to be
a trivia king? I do!!Like a high school wallflower, I was tethered to the telephone all afternoon hoping a last-second cancellation would clear the way for me. Alas, it wasn't to be.
Perhaps it's because those fine lads across the hall are heavily involved in this event that KCCN (1420 AM) promoted as the second-coming of Jeopardy. Or maybe it's because Curran thought my feelings were still raw for UH choosing Robert Kekaula over me as the radio color man for this year's Rainbow football games.
I got over it, although I'm still waiting to hear about my suggestion of having weekly guest commentators sit in and disagree with everything Curran says. Now, that's a color man.
Be that as it may, not being a part of the celebrity panel brought a tear to my eye as I watched Regis Philbin on last night's hit show, "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?"
My wife asked me if I had listened to the radio contest on my way home from work. I choked back a sob and said, "No, it was much too painful for me."
I wanted so badly to ask my good friend Bob Hogue if Channel 2 News had learned anything current about Fred vonAppen. Kekaula was also scheduled to make an appearance on the celebrity panel. I recently asked him to see if Channel 4 weekend anchor Shawn Ching ever planned to make good on the lost wages he owes me, but I guess that will have to wait for another day.
FOR those who don't know anything about the grand trivia challenge -- and I'm sure there's about 900,000 of you island-wide -- let me give you a brief history.
Curran and Star-Bulletin contributor Dave Reardon thought of the idea a couple of years ago. They decided it would help jazz up the three-hour afternoon radio show if they had callers phone in and answer sports questions.
The giveaways weren't exactly eye-opening and some of the questions were unanswerable unless you had lived in Hawaii since the turn of the century, but give Curran credit, the idea has blossomed into something of a money-maker. Last night's winner will attend the World Series.
Because the Star-Bulletin wasn't invited to sit in with the celebrity brainiacs -- calling anyone in journalism a celebrity is a bit of a stretch -- we'll never know how we would have matched up against Curran and his sidekick Gary Dickman, or the trivia masters from the Advertiser. But I have to believe if the questions were general in nature, we would have emerged victorious.
ON Wednesday night, I drifted off to sleep -- Hawaii head coach June Jones' morning workouts are taking a toll on a night owl such as myself -- during ABC-TV's millionaire mania hour.
I remember one of my daughters shaking me awake and asking me something about what was the first metallic band to win a Grammy Award in 1989. I mumbled, "Jethro Tull," and raised up seconds later in pure terror when she shrieked, "WE COULD HAVE WON A MILLION DOLLARS!"
Granted no one from the celebrity panel pocketed that much cash during last night's local show. Even a fund-raiser such as Murph couldn't pony up that kind of money.
But hey, it would have been worth twice that much to step out on Merchant Street knowing our paper was king of sports trivia. Oh well, there's always next year.
Until that day, the Star-Bulletin leaves you with this trivia question: Name the only media member who has covered every Hawaii football game this decade.
Paul Arnett has been covering sports
for the Star-Bulletin since 1990.