A Difficult Quiz?

From Frisco Del Rosario:

1. Explain how you calculate a pitcher's earned run average.
2. Name five current Lakers other than Kobe.
3. Name all of the golf masters tournaments.
4. Who is the winningest college Division I men's basketball coach and which years was he at the school(s) he compiled that record?
5. Which NFL player recorded the most career touchdowns, what years and who'd he play for?
6. Name the last ten Heisman Trophy winners and where they played in college.

A heads-up: Frisco didn't write this quiz, so we won't blame him for #3, as there are no "golf masters tournaments." There is the Masters Tournament, which is one tournament. Undoubtedly they meant to ask for #3, "name all of the golf Grand Slam tournaments.

The sports information director in charge of women's basketball at the University of the Pacific was given this quiz because she wanted to work at ESPN - before offering an interview, they wanted to test her sports knowledge.

Some comments:

1. It seems that what ESPN cares about is: baseball, pro basketball, golf, men's college basketball, men's college football and pro football. No other sport actually exists as ESPN: I watch women's college basketball on ESPN but virtually nothing else. Aside from poker, I don't remember any other "sports" being represented there. Maybe a few MLS games.

2. How hard are these questions? I can only answer one of them - the pitcher's earned run average question, since I used to follow baseball very closely. (Old baseball, that is.) You would have to follow six sports closely enough to get those questions, and you'd have to follow them in some depth - two questions ask you for the name of more than one person.

I suspect that #1, #4 and #5 might be the easiest, because each asks you to recall one prominent fact. #2 and #3 ask you to have intermediate knowledge about a sport (pro basketball, golf). #6 can only be answered by college football mavens.

3. Was it a fair quiz? Is this one of those cases at Southern polls in the 1950s where one group of voters is asked to spell "cat" and the other is asked when the Edict of Nantes was revoked? That, I don't know. My question: how many of these can you get right? Frisco del Rosario implies that the majority of ESPN talking heads couldn't get all of these right, and I concur - I'd be surprised to meet some that could get three right.

You can get the answers by highlighting the text in white below.

1. Earned run average is simply earned runs divided by innings pitched.
2. Any five of these names will do: Ron Artest, Shannon Brown, Andrew Bynum, Jordan Farmar, Derek Fisher, Pau Gasol, Didier Ilunga-Mbenga, Adam Morrison, Larmar Odom, Josh Powell, Sasha Vujacic, Luke Walton.
3. The Masters, the US Open, the British Open, and the PGA Championship. Double points if you call the British Open "The Open". If I were the woman who was asked this stuff, I would have answered the Kraft Nabisco, the LPGA Championship, the US Women's Open, and the Women's British Open and dared the man to claim otherwise.
4. I believe that for coaches who have only coached at current Division I schools, the men's basketball leader is Bob Knight. 1965-71 at Army, 1972-2000 at Indiana, 2001-08 at Texas Tech. I believe this is 42 seasons.
5. Jerry Rice: 1985-2000 at San Francisco, 2001-04 at Oakland and 2004 at Seattle.
6. In reverse chronological order: Mark Ingram Jr, Alabama; Sam Bradford, Oklahoma; Tim Tebow, Florida; Troy Smith, Ohio State; Reggie Bush, USC; Matt Leinart, USC; Jason White, Oklahoma; Carson Palmer, USC; Eric Crouch, Nebraska; and Chris Weinke, Florida State.