Congratulations Illinois, You've Won....Well I'm Not Sure What You've Won

Wednesday, February 25, 2009


It's over! The Mount Rushmore of Sports has been decided!!! After a month of random voting, and annoying appearances by Rick Reilly on Sports Center, your Mt. Rushmore is....drum roll. The fine state of Illinois!!! Via ESPN PR....

Fans have voted Illinois’ four sports greats – Michael Jordan, Walter Payton, Ernie Banks and Mike Ditka – the most impressive quartet of sports icons representing each U.S. State, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, to be chiseled on SportsCenter’s “Mt. Rushmore of Sports.” Illinois received 28.6 percent of the votes, beating out the other four finalists – Pennsylvania, California, New York and Alabama.

The five-week series, which began January 18 with fan nominations on ESPN.com and concluded today with the live announcement of the winning state on the 6 p.m. ET edition of SportsCenter, engaged fans with more than 300,000 entries nominating the personalities to represent the states/regions and voting online at different stages of the series. Final voting for the winner from among five finalists began Friday, Feb. 20, and ended Monday, Feb. 23.

Illinois- 28.6% (Michael Jordan, Walter Payton, Ernie Banks, Mike Ditka)
Pennsylvania- 25.5% (Joe Paterno, Mario Lemieux, Roberto Clemente, Wilt Chamberlain)
California- 17.4% (Tiger Woods, John Wooden, Magic Johnson, Jackie Robinson)
New York- 15.4% (Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson, Jim Brown, Joe Namath)
Alabama- 13.1% (Hank Aaron, Bear Bryant, Bo Jackson, Willie Mays)
I still think the Ditka addition should have bumped Illinois out of the Top Five, but whatever. Arguing that is like arguing the merits of the pointless segment to begin with. So congratulations, Illinois. You've won absolutely nothing! I can't to see what ESPN does next, during a downtime in Sports!!!

Posted by Awful Announcing at 11:37 AM

3 Comments:

Illinois wins Rick Reilly's fanny-pack.

GMoney said...
Feb 25, 2009, 12:13:00 PM  

In the summer ESPN will probably add a "Who's Nower" segment that looks at individuals who are more "Now" than two years ago. Reilly will likely host that as well.

walnuts said...
Feb 25, 2009, 12:23:00 PM  

Its becmoing clearer that ESPN can't find anything for him to do at the Netwrork, so they stuck him on this "Mount Rushmore" crap that no one gave a damm aobut. Whoever thought at ESPN that Rick Reily was good on TV should be fired as soon as possible. He sucks on TV. And by the way, Reilly fits very well, at ESPN Magazine, becasue that Mag is nothing more than a piece of GARBAGE!!!

Unknown said...
Feb 25, 2009, 12:37:00 PM  

Post a Comment