QUOTE(ai!caramba! @ Mar 18 2005, 02:41 AM)
Check Tito Talao's column on Tempo.
From Tempo:
Fumble
THANK heavens for Joseph Yeo.
Maybe it's the television cameras. Or the knowledge people all over the country were watching. Or the sight of Vic Sotto and Joey de Leon.
Whichever, I just spent 20 minutes of my mid-morning yesterday watching three of the four best collegiate players in the land ''fumble the ball'' in front of national TV.
Getting ready to shower and be off to work, I got dragged back to the open television when Vic and Joey, host of the noontime show Eat Bulaga!, announced that their game contestants were La Salle's Mark Cardona and Joseph Yeo and Far Eastern's Arwind Santos and Denok Miranda.
Anyway, you probably saw that segment so I need not bother you with details except that (for the benefit of those who didn't) a set of questions were asked each of the players under time pressure, with the two highest scores advancing to the next round en route to the P1 million phase.
The elimination round questions, it has be said here, had nothing to do with basketball. But most of them were so elementary, it boggled the mind how three of the players couldn't handle them.
At any rate, Yeo, the fearless Green Archer slasher, made it to that cool one million round, answering the first four questions (all about the NBA) correctly before faltering in the all-important fifth Q: What year was the 24-second shot clock implemented?
I don't know the answer to that myself so I wish Yeo hadn't gone on to that fifth one, which would have left him with P500,000 instead of P50,000.
Guess the guy doesn't back off challenges. And the fact that he's studying in La Salle probably means he doesn't need the extra dough.
As for Cardona, Miranda, and Santos...
I'm sure they know, even while dribbling the ball, that ''sampaguita'' is the national flower. That ''Bell'' is the surname of the inventor of the telephone. That ''All Souls Day'' is what November 2 is all about. That F in F.B.I. stands for ''Federal.'' And that ''Oscar'' is what they call the Academy Awards.
Maybe they just didn't hear the questions well. Or the sight of the Sex Bomb dancers was a distraction. Or the glitter of all those movie and TV personalities proved too dazzling.
So they stumbled, and stammered, and scratched their heads afterward.
Next time, boys, tell your agents, or to whoever would invite you to appear in game shows, to make sure they ask you only about things you probably know by heart.
You know, just to avoid being, well, awed by the moment again.
Things like ''Which team hosted the 2005 NBA All-Star Game?'' Or ''Who tied Grant Hill for the Rookie of the Year award in 1995?'' Or ''Who among Shaquille O'Neal, Shawn Bradley, Kevin Garnett and Yao Ming doesn't play the center position?''
Joseph Yeo got all that, plus the fact that Hakeem Olajuwon wasn't a member of the original Dream Team.
For that, he's richer by P50,000. And richer in the eyes of people who are interested in things other than the game Dr. James Naismith invented. Naismith, who?