File under the category "stunning discovery" the revelation (to SMQ, at least) Thursday that second tier Worldwide Leader play-by-play man Rodney Gilmore is an attorney, apparently of the high-powered variety, at the Palo Alto firm Doty, Barlow, Britt and Thomas, where he specializes in "transactional law with an emphasis on business formation and planning, mergers and acquisitions, commercial transactions, intellectual property and technology licensing."
Remember that the next time Gilmore's stomped in a "Friday Debate" by Trevor Matich.
Football at Stanford, law degree at Cal...which side are you on, Gilmore?
Coming as it does on the heels of his discovery this week that Lee Corso is director of business development at pencil giant Dixon Ticonderoga, as well as his Gameday foil's rival bashing on a regular radio gig, SMQ was driven to conduct a hard-hitting, expansive, in-depth and not at all made up investigative report into the day jobs that occupy our favorite weekend talking heads:
Paul Maguire
Stunt Pilot
Daredevil Maguire lost his sense of survival "around three," and has lived every hour since as if it were his last. He decided his destiny was in aviaton during a fall from a tree in the middle of an espionage operation outside the summer palace of a Soviet ambassador in the eastern Georgian steppe at age seven. While shooting for the film The Gila Riseth with his partner "Obsolete" Olley Amaker in 1965, Maguire, scheduled to perform a triple barrel roll through the space in a low-hanging rock formation in the Guatelejaran badlands, tore muscles in his knee during a sober brawl with the film's star, Alejandro Martinez-Bell. Amaker stepped into Maguire's cockpit to perform the roll, but the plane "nosed in," instantly killing Obsolete Olley. Maguire, anguished, blamed himself for his colleague's death, and suffered a tragedy of his own days later when an infection from bite marks left by Martinez-Bell forced the amputation of Maguire's leg.
Maguire vowed to never fly a plane again, and turned instead to setting to the AFL's career punting record on an artificial limb consisting of asbestos and sheetrock. He kept his vow for decades, until his love of planes was rekindled in the midst of a botched suicide attempt following a 28-13 Buffalo Bill loss to Kansas City on Sunday Night Football in 1995. Since, Maguire still pays tribute to the inches separating his fallen partner's - and, years later, his own - death and survival by dedicating correct guesses on first down measures to Obsolete Olley.
Brent Musburger
Quality Control (Blatz)
Founded in 1846, Blatz is one of the oldest of the famous Milwaukee breweries, and for 46 years, the task of ensuring the integrity of the lager's color, flavor, body and pallette has fallen to Musburger. In that time, nary a bottle has escaped the sensitive critique of the discriminating veteran's experienced tongue.
Unlike wine-tasting, a good beer rater understands assessing his product requires its full consumption, a professional ethic to which Musburger has displayed the utmost dedication. Firstly, he never rate a beer direct from a can or a bottle, only a clean glass. He then makes certain the beer is at the correct temperature (this does not mean "almost frozen!" Musburger insists people who drink icy beer - e.g. many Australians - don't realize that human noses and tongues do not work well at these temperatures - or maybe the beer they are drinking is so bad they are doing this deliberately! Cellar temperature is often recommended, but Musburger prefers to cool his beers a few degrees colder than the recommended temperature, so that by the batch sample is in the glass and he's made a couple of minutes worth of initial observations, it's ready to taste. Freezing your glass is not recommended by Musburger as it freezes water out of the beer and can substantially alter its flavor). Being a self-professed "super nerdy" beer rater, Musburger's preference is to operate in as quiet a situation as possible, with minimum noise and distractions, so observers are rarely "looking live" on his critique - though Musburger sometimes concedes to allow his longtime partner "Jackaroo" into the "fortress of quality."
Jill Arrington
Chemical/Biological Warfare Analyst (NASA)
Our beleaguered nation can rest easy knowing this highly-skilled specialist is applying her ample talents to preventing a terrorist foothold in the cosmos. A model of youthful ambition, Arrington's career has rocketed - no pun intended - through the glass ceiling and into the highest levels of classified government science, intelligence and weaponry despite few published academic papers, which themselves have been derided by some colleagues as "juvenile"; mostly, this criticism has stemmed from jealous older broads. Arrington assures us she is exceptionally qualified, as totally evidenced by her diploma or whatever.
Chris Spielman
Anger Management Counselor (Middleton and Associates)
Ward's former booth counterpart spends his weekdays advising others on methods to keep their cool, specifically specializing in Cleveland-area white collar office workers whose tempers have or might cost them major mergers and seven-figure accounts. Spielman teaches that anger is a natural human emotion, one of evolution's checks against a perceived threat to our well-being; as such, anger is not the problem. Rather, we are often hurt much more in today's world by losing control of anger. Through Spielman, professionals learn to keep their cool and their feet, wrap up and run through the sudden erasure of the well-honed power point planned for the pressure-packed presentation in front of the board, like, now, without a costly blown stack.
Spencer Tillman
Mannequin (Dillard's)
Created in 1984, the stunningly lifelike and immensely popular "Spencer Tillman" model has borne a steady wave of fashion "dos," spanning chinos, acid-wash, biz-caz and back again (long live retro!). The Tillman is a male model, African-American fleshtone with molded hair, fiberglass construction, high quality. SKU: AF-FJFM1. 74 inches tall with base; Chest - 40"; Waist - 33"; Hip - 39". Ships in 1 to 3 business days via UPS/FedEx - 45 lbs.
Related and recommended (and real): Click here to see Lee Corso take the 35-mile challenge, representative of the distance capable by one Dixon Ticonderoga No. 2 on a single, uninterrupted line.