This post is for my dad.
Oh, yeah, and for those of you who like reading about money, there's a bit of that in here too.
For the past 20 or so years, my dad and I have had a tradition -- we bet $1 on every college bowl game and NFL playoff game. This tradition started a couple decades ago when we were watching football and teams like Army and Rutgers were playing each other. We weren't interested in the game until one of us said, "Want to bet who wins?" Since that day, I've spent every December and January cheering for the likes of Army, Rutgers, Marshall, and all the rest like I went to school at each one of them and their winning the game was the most important thing in my life.
We negotiate points (a rather simple but useful system) for every game, name a winner and loser, and track who's won the most each year. The winner gets to keep a crystal football trophy for the year and the loser gets an ugly fish trinket my mom found at a flea market for 10 cents or so (and the loser has to display the fish prominently in their home -- we put either the fish or the football on top of our TV cabinet). The winner also gets the privilege of being called "The Champion" for the year and gets to relish the time when the other has to pay his $2 winnings for the year. (no, we're not competitive) Obviously, it's not the money that we love, it's all these fringe benefits. ;-)
I'm way ahead in the series (something like 15 to 5), but over the last five years dad has gotten with the show and the whole season has gone down to the last game (the Super Bowl). I've been fortunate enough to have the Patriots, the Panthers (and the points), and Tampa during this time but he's had the Ravens and the Eagles (and the points) to win two out of five years (including last year). Needless to say, this was a key year for me to re-establish that I AM THE CHAMPION!!
Well, it was very anti-climactic this year. I was three ahead after the bowl games and won the first four post-season NFL games. We split each weekend from there on out, so I had the season wrapped up a few weeks ago. (Just for the record, I lost the Super Bowl -- dad gave five points to get the Steelers -- and ended up with $6 in winnings.)
So I'm posting to say the following to those of you who read this:
To the Steelers: Congratulations!
To Free Money Finance readers: I'm $6 richer!!!
To my dad: I'M THE CHAMPION!!!!!! ;-)
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