SEATTLE NEWS ARCHIVES & FEATURES
Fifth grader gets in trouble at school for NCAA pool
Mar 20, 2012, 11:06 AM | Updated: 1:16 pm
 North Carolina’s P.J. Hairston, right, John Henson, center, and Stilman White, left, joke on the bench during the second half of a third- round NCAA tournament college basketball game against Creighton in Greensboro, N.C., Sunday, March 18, 2012. North Carolina won 87-73. Max has North Carolina going all the way. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton) |
When Max was called to the principal’s office in his Omaha
elementary school, he took a deep breath, started making
the long walk, and wondered what, exactly, he had done
wrong.
As he sat down in the principal’s office she asked, ‘So
you’re into basketball?’
Max knew then, that he was going to get in trouble for
something that people around the country are doing at this
very minute: Competing for bucks with their NCAA
tournament brackets.
When Max’s mother, Janet Kohll received a call in the
middle of the day, she knew one of her two kids at the
elementary school had gotten in trouble. When her kids get
in trouble at school, she told 97.3 KIRO FM’s Dori Monson
Show, they get in twice as much trouble at home.
But this time, she laughed. “I knew he was doing it, but I
didn’t think about where he was doing this.”
Max had just started collecting money for his pool. He
said there would be six kids involved in all, with $5 to
enter and the first place bracket winner would receive
$15, second place $10, and third $5.
“Retrospectively, I would have said ‘Where are you doing
this?'” Kohll said. While the pool didn’t work out with
his friends at school, Max is competing with his family to
see who has the best bracket, but not for cash.
“It was pretty good, then I started losing some games,”
Max told Dori. His winner is North Carolina.
The situation was something Dori sympathized with because
he was also a child-bookie. At James Monroe Jr. High in
Ballard, he would take bets on college and pro-football
games from his classmates. He collected and paid out on
Mondays and Tuesdays, and the betting continued through
high school.
Dori doesn’t know if his principal didn’t know or care,
but Kohll found a moment to sympathize with Dori’s mom,
sarcastically saying that she must be ‘so proud,’ of young
Dori.
As for Max, Kohll said she has warned her children that
the next time the principal calls, it won’t end as well.
