It’s the best time of the year for football fans and The Garden Island is restarting its football picks game. This year, the official title is The Garden Island’s Gridiron Challenge. Also, well-known media individuals, from the land of television,
It’s the best time of the year for football fans and The Garden Island is restarting its football picks game. This year, the official title is The Garden Island’s Gridiron Challenge. Also, well-known media individuals, from the land of television, radio, and of course the newspaper will battle it out for bragging rights.
So who has the best football knowledge?
You’ll find out as Ron Wiley of KONG, Shelly Cobb of the SURF, and David Bice of FM97 fill out the radio roster.
J Robertson of Ho‘ike, Dickie Chang of Wala‘au, and Katie Beer of KT Productions are the television crew, and last, but not least, The Garden Island is represented by Publisher Shanna Pollard, Associate Editor Paul Curtis, and myself. Originally started by former sports editor, Nick Abramo, who’s now at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, the pigskin picks game will feature not only college and NFL games, but high school contests as well.
Back in June, Dickie Chang, who played along with Abramo in the old days, brought up the idea and I decided to start it up again. The favorites, in my opinion is the television gang, who feature two of the best sports minds on Kaua‘i in J Robertson and Mr. Wala‘au himself (Believe me, Dickie is as good with his mouth as he is with football knowledge). Robertson in the meantime, has done a lot for Kaua‘i’s high school athletes by working hard and doing extensive research to get them into the Nissan Hall of Honor.
However, if Robertson and Chang fail to prosper, then they’ll have to depend on videographer Katie Beer, who has told me that she pays close attention to sports websites for her picks.
The radio players are led by people who have to get up really early, as each of them are morning personalities for their respective stations. KONG’s Ron Wiley has a pretty talented dog in Elvis. Wiley is actually picking his dog’s brain for the advantage. Although Ron says he doesn’t know “squat” about football, Elvis might be the go-to dog in the challenge.
Just couple doors down, in the SURF studio, Shelly Cobb has her own bone to pick, as her dog relaxes in the studio when she does her morning show. Cobb has her own unique way of picking the winners.
Shelly does it with darts and a board. The SURF’s morning personality will have to depend on luck to come through for the radio crew. FM97’s David Bice stands alone in the radio world with football knowledge.
Bice, a California transplant is a huge Oakland Raiders fan, so unfortunately with the Raiders’ slide, Bice will have to put down his pride and go with the front runners.
Bice is also colorful with his choices, as he goes on to say that the 49ers might be the worst team in the NFL, the Chiefs might be the best in the league (not good for his Raiders), and for the Monday night game with Carolina and Green Bay, Bice went with his cat’s opinion, even if his heart is with Green Bay.
The Garden Island has the toughest job out of all the teams. Not only are we the host squad, but we all have pretty good football minds. Starting with publisher Shanna Pollard, who knows her football and will probably lead the print crew in the win column. Associate editor Paul C. Curtis (PC for short) has an eye for the upset and by the way, wish Paul a happy birthday (09/09) the next time you see him. The man with two first names will try to keep his picks balanced, but will go with local products (Jordon Dizon) on college teams even if they aren’t favored. As for myself, the pressure is on to help grab the initial title in The Garden Island’s Gridiron Challenge.
It’s going to be a great season for prep, college, and the NFL and I’m looking forward to cooling the egos of our island’s finest media members.
