Survey Results: Anchor of Gold’s Favorite Championship

The post-holiday season always involves a lot of stir-crazy for me. The problem is, I’ve already had that for all of 2020.

I guess the two combined on Sunday night, and we got ourselves an Anchor of Gold survey: How do you, as a fan, rank Vanderbilt’s five national championships? And then I threw in the 1990 NIT Championship, because that’s exactly the sort of thing I’d do.

We wound up with 53 votes! Thanks to everyone who joined in. Let’s get to the results.

(Actually, let’s link to the survey again, in case anyone who didn’t get to take it wants to do so. Okay, to the results now.)

Everything wound up with at least one first-place vote, so that’s cool. If we counted the votes like college football (6 points for first place, down to 1 for last place), it’d look like this:

1. 2014 Baseball: 294 points (34)
2. 2019 Baseball: 238 points (10)
3. 2014 Women’s Tennis: 144 points (1)
4. 2007 Bowling: 132 points (4)
5. 1990 Basketball NIT: 128 points (2)
6. 2018 Bowling: 116 points (2)

Either way, it’s 2014 baseball, then 2019 baseball, and then everything else is way behind. It was a little interesting that women’s tennis had so many #3 and #4 votes, while bowling championships a bunch of #5 and #6 votes (or just didn’t get voted for at all). And I kind of expected a bunch of last-place votes for the 1990 NIT, because NIT.

I’m going to freely admit I voted for the 2018 bowling championship. Anchor of Gold had a live thread, even if I couldn’t join in. Vanderbilt came back from behind to knock off the defending national champions. I had exactly zero faith in Vanderbilt winning all match long. And then in Game 7, they opened with a bonkers spare (click that, skip to 1:53, and then try to figure out what you just watched) that totally deflated McKendree. Good times.

I wish I could have voted for 2018 women’s tennis. I really do. I unexpectedly woke up early that day, so I said “let’s call in sick, and drive all the way to Winston-Salem!” Naturally, I shaved, showered, and right before I emailed, I got a call at 6:30 in the morning from work going THE SYSTEM IS DOWN (spoiler: it wasn’t).

not actually pictured: parlagi at the office

And then Stanford won 4-3 anyway. Boo. (If you were the one who gave women’s tennis its lone number one vote, do share in the comments!)

You know what, also share if you were one of the people with fond memories of that NIT championship. I voted it #2, and I’m certain I only did because in my pre-pubescent mind, it was a big freaking deal at a time. Nostalgia is a powerful drug, and in 2020, we could all use a fix. (Tell us about the 1974 Peach Bowl for all I care.)

Okay, that’s enough rambling. Let’s get to the other, equally important question.

Which company’s commercials makes you want to shoot your TV the most?

Everyone answered this one! Oh boy, did some of you answer it.

• Mesothelioma Lawyers: 24 votes
• Peloton: 8 votes
• Skyrizi: 6 votes
• Corona: 3 votes
• Mirror: 1 vote
• Others: 11 votes

11 write-ins! You people could teach the Libertarians and Greens how to rally support. (Except it’s Anchor of Gold, so we’d probably try to rally the Free Soil Party or something.) Let’s see what our friends wrote in. [Italicized comments in square brackets are from me.]

• Vanderbilt: 3 times, because of course Anchor of Gold would do this
• Anything involving the animated remains of Bart Durham
• Insurance companies like Progressive. Why they think associating bumbling incompetents to their brands is acceptable, I’ll never know.
• Kim Crawford wine
• Lexus [I think the GMC ad is worse. The one where the wife screams I LOVE IT like she’s been driving the same Pontiac Sunfire for 25 years, and the husband goes “red is good.” You have $100K to throw away at the drop of a hat, and you spend it on GMCs?]
• Mikey likes it [I had no idea Life cereal had remade this in 2020.]
• The one with the hayseed in the red hat and he offers homespun wisdom and insurance I think. Who can tell what a commercial is for nowadays? I remember when all this was fields! [If someone can identify this in the comments, please do.]
• Those stupid “Heisman House” commercials
• University of Tennessee (we all know the “education” aspect is a sham)

And I think that’s about it. Prospero año y felicidad, everybody!