Since they keep score in sports, we’ll do the same with this month’s quiz. Follow these clues to name great names and moments in sports history. Ten correct answers qualify you as a casual fan (below that, better stick with pop culture). Thirteen correct answers mark you as a knowledgeable fan, ready for almost any barroom debate. Get all 15 right, and you’re a super fan, ready for a spot on ESPN.
The answers appear below.
1. What name was created in 1980 to describe the moment when a team of American college hockey players upset the Soviet Union national team at the Lake Placid Winter Olympics?
2. Who shattered Hitler’s myth of Aryan supremacy when he won four gold medals at the Berlin Summer Olympics in 1936?
3. Who broke Major League Baseball’s longstanding color barrier when he took the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947?
4. Who became the first gymnast in Olympic history to score a perfect 10 in an event in the 1976 Olympics?
5. Who used his brilliant “rope-a-dope” strategy to knock out the undefeated George Foreman to reclaim his heavyweight championship in 1974?
6. Who clocked a mind-boggling 9.58 seconds in the 100-meter-dash at the World Championships in Berlin in 2009?
7. Who set the NBA single-game scoring record when he scored 100 points for the Philadelphia Warriors in a 1962 victory over the Knicks?
8. Who shattered the previous long jump world record by almost 2 feet, jumping 29 feet, 2.5 inches at the Mexico City Olympics in 1968?
9. What gymnast nailed a vault on an injured ankle at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics to help the USA win their first ever team gold medal?
10. Who “called his shot” and then hit a home run in the 1932 World Series?
11. Who revolutionized his event when he cleared the bar by “flopping” over backwards to win the Olympic gold in 1968?
12. What name was given to the 1992 U.S. Men’s Olympic basketball team that was the first to include NBA stars?
13. What American swimmer holds the record for the most Olympic gold medals (28) accomplished across four Olympic games?
14. Who holds the record for the most home runs hit in World Series history with 18 and also holds the record for the longest home run (634 feet)?
15. Who won the internationally televised “Battle of the Sexes” tennis match against former No. 1 player Bobby Riggs?
Answers:
1. Miracle on Ice
2. Jesse Owens
3. Jackie Robinson
4. Nadia Comaneci
5. Muhammed Ali
6. Usain Bolt
7. Wilt Chamberlain
8. Bob Beeman
9. Kerri Strug
10. Babe Ruth
11. Dick Fosbury
12. Dream Team
13. Michael Phelps
14. Mickey Mantle
15. Billie Jean King
