John Brinson is surely the luckiest man in the world.
Brinson, 46, a retired U.S. Army veteran living in Goldsboro, North Carolina, was picked at random from some three million entries to attempt the “Gillette Three-Point Challenge,” a made-for-television publicity stunt conducted during the 1997 NCAA Final Four. This is the deal: Make a basketball shot from behind the college three-point line and Gillette’s insurance company pays out $1 million over 20 years; miss and Gillette provides a $50,000 consolation prize. Either scenario translates into a tasty windfall for the contestant.
How tasty? Given that Mr. Brinson can make three-pointers about 25% of the time he tries, the “expected value”—as mathematicians and gamblers like to say—of his Three-Point Challenge is $287,500. ($1 million one-out-four times plus $50,000 the other three times equals $1,150,000; divided by four.) Remember, this gift was bestowed upon him when his name was picked from approximately three million other entries. If you want a sense of how daunting such odds are, see how long it takes you to count to three million. (Go really fast and it shouldn’t take more than a year.) Like I said, John Brinson is a very lucky man.
He’ll tell you as much. “Oh, I’m very lucky. Always been my whole life,” he reports, chatting in an Indianapolis hotel lobby the evening before his date with the three-point line. “I mean, just surviving Vietnam, when I saw so many of my friends never come back. And the time I was in a car accident in Tennessee. I was rear-ended by a drunk driver. Should have been in critical condition, or worse. But I walked away. I know I’m lucky.”
But no amount of luck, or good fortune, or anything short of divine intervention can explain John Brinson being selected to shoot a three-point basket at the 1997 Final Four.
Because two years earlier, in a similar contest, John Brinson was selected from more than one million entries to attempt a $1 million 10-foot putt. (He missed.)
The odds of one person being picked for both events, according to Dr. Cris Poor, a mathematics professor at Fordham University, are more than a trillion to one. That’s twelve zeroes: 1,000,000,000,000-to-1. In other words, odds that are not merely once in a lifetime, but more like once in the history of civilization.
Being the man who for many years created the “Vegas line,” the betting odds for every major (and minor) sporting event in the world, including the World Series, the Super Bowl, and the Stanley Cup, Michael “Roxy” Roxborough knows a little something about odds. I ask Roxy about John Brinson’s incredible luck. “The sun is a bigger favorite to blow up tomorrow than something like this to happen,” Roxy says. “There’s no mathematical equivalent I could even give you, it’s so ridiculous. I would have a better chance of scoring back-to-back one-night-stands with Sharon Stone and Cindy Crawford.”
So Brinson getting picked at random twice from millions of entries is impossible? “It’s not impossible,” Roxy concedes. “But let’s put it this way: There’s definitely something fishy. I’m not saying there was fraud, but I will say whoever conducted the draw has lost a lot of credibility.”
Purely from an oddsmaker’s point of view, Brinson’s luck is unfathomable. Living in Vegas for many years, Roxy believes in probabilities, not miracles.
He may have a point.
I’ve seen a videotape of the Gillette drawing, held in what looks to be a warehouse. On it, a lady with a Midwestern accent narrates while another lady in a green dress makes the selections. First you see four huge 1,000-pound-capacity boxes of mail, each filled, according to the narrator, with trays of mail-in entries. (You can’t see inside the boxes.) The narrator says that they have drawn a numbered ping-pong ball at random to select which box the winner will come from. (You don’t see this part.) Then the tape cuts to a shot of six trays of mail, each holding several hundred entries inside their original envelopes, spread across the floor. The narrator says they will now select a numbered ping-pong ball to determine which tray the winner will come from. The on-camera lady in green reaches into an uncovered plastic bowl, swishes around what one presumes are several balls (you can’t see this part clearly), and plucks out a ball with a “1” drawn on it. She then walks to the first tray, looks directly at the envelopes, riffles through them as if locating an alphabetically arranged file, and pulls out an envelope. She cuts it open and reads the winner’s name from what one presumes is an entry slip. (You can’t see the writing clearly.)
It’s John David Brinson.
If any Las Vegas casino conducted its keno games in this sloppy fashion, the Gaming Control Board would have it shut down in ten minutes.
But what motive would anyone have to rig the draw?
Admittedly, John Brinson is a public-relations dream-come-true. Vietnam vet, certified foster parent, pledged to invest his winnings on a local youth center—this is the kind of solid citizen you can root for, the kind of Everyman hero with whom a jillion-dollar corporation would like to be associated.
Whether putting, or shooting a three-pointer, or pitching a baseball into a small net, average Joes and Janes plucked from obscurity have a reasonable opportunity to fulfill that insistent American dream: to get rich overnight. Tapping into our fondness for fairy tales in which an anonymous underdog does something wonderful and transformational, these million-dollar challenges, which Gillette invented and others have since copied, are enormously powerful—and cost-effective—marketing tools. Eric Kraus, the director of communications for Gillette, tells me, “Our million-dollar promotions have been excellent. They’re exciting, highly visible and, ultimately, they help move a lot of product. They’re great for our retailers, great for our consumers, and great for our company. It’s a chance for us to create what we call a ‘mega-moment.’ It’s a fabulous promotion.”
Though Kraus won’t divulge precise figures, he acknowledges that the premiums his company pays for insurance in the event someone wins—at the time of Brinson’s three-pointer-for-cash the public was 0-for-9 in Gillette-sponsored contests—is less than 10% of the total prize.
“Actually, it costs us more if the contestant misses,” Kraus reports. “We have to pay the consolation prize.” Even worse, his company doesn’t get millions of dollars in free publicity from the “mega-moment” being replayed on countless local news broadcasts and sports highlight shows, as Hershey’s did when one of its contest winners kicked a million-dollar field goal. “Believe me, we want John to win,” Kraus says. “We’re rooting for him.”
How hard? I wonder. Badly enough to cook the results of a random draw? Tempting, but unlikely. Because while the possibility of corporate chicanery may be there, Brinson’s badly conducted selection was probably less about a rigged draw than it was about miracles. Screwball comedy miracles. Guardian angels. Good things happening to good guys.
The night before John Brinson will have his second chance at winning $1 million, I ask him if he thinks his selection was indeed a miracle. “I believe we all get blessings every day. They come in different forms. This wasn’t a miracle. This was a blessing. But you know,” he says, smiling warmly, “I feel like I’m blessed whether I win a million dollars or not. Every day I feel that way.”
I ask him if he’s suffering from the unavoidable stress and strain of performing a life-altering feat on live television, before a worldwide audience. “Nah,” he says nonchalantly, almost sincerely enough that you believe him. “I’m more excited about the North Carolina basketball game than I am about the shot. See, I’m very positive. If I make it, I’ll be rich and positive. You know, with my military background—the discipline, the rigorous training—shooting a basket isn’t anything to worry about.”
Brinson’s wife, Margaret, concurs. “I’m not nervous. He’s going to make it. I know he is.”
“Oh, yeah, it’s going in,” John says. “I’m going to make it. I feel it. I dream about it. I see it going in. And after I make it, or even if I don’t, I’m just going to go home and harvest my potatoes and my greens.”
Brinson has reason to feel confident. For the past eight months he’s submitted to a regimen of daily practice—at least an hour or two a day—shooting 19’9” baskets until his “stroke” is as smooth and repeatable as Reggie Miller’s. Twice he’s consorted with NBA Hall of Famer Rick Barry, a celebrity coach hired by Gillette, to work on technique. Brinson’s practice sessions, at the local YMCA back home, attract an enthusiastic audience, many of whom offer the world’s luckiest man advice, secrets, and good wishes for his (second) shot-of-a-lifetime. He says he’s been averaging between 20% and 30% success.
Based on those numbers, I suggest to Brinson that his shot is actually more likely to miss than make. On the other hand, if luck comes into play …
“I know it’s going in,” he says. “I want the ball to bounce around on the rim a little bit, keep everybody in suspense. And all the time I know it’s going in.”
Margaret Brinson shakes her head in disbelief at her man’s sense of drama, and takes her husband off to bed.
The next morning, the morning of The Shot, in a limousine on the way to a live segment for the “Today” show, John Brinson tells me he slept perfectly. And he looks it. The man is loose, with an equanimity befitting a Buddhist monk. “I feel like a million,” he says, beaming.
During warm-ups for his television spot, the Million Dollar Man sinks seven three-pointers in a row. On camera, he misses his first two attempts and sinks the third. The stroke looks good.
“He’s been making about thirty percent,” Rick Barry tells me. “I’m just hoping when he’s shooting for the money it’ll be one of the good three. If luck has anything to do with it, we know that part is on his side.”
Though Barry believes shooting underhanded is the softest and most efficient way to make the big basket, he chose not to change Brinson’s natural overhand shot. “He’s a big strong guy,” Barry says. “I’ve just been stressing to him: Shoot it high; use your legs! Legs and up! Legs and up! People miss because they shoot the ball flat. Legs and up!”
Brinson nods at his teacher. “Legs and up. Right.”
Imagine what it must be like to know you will (or won’t) win a million dollars by the end of the day. What do you do? What do you think about? For the six hours prior to showtime, John Brinson spends a quiet day back at his hotel. He reads the paper and the Bible, naps, watches C-SPAN, calls home, thinks. “And I saw Kareem in the lobby, carrying his own luggage: Exciting!”
Only hours before his test, I ask him the great sportscaster cliche question: How do you feel?
“I’m ready,” he replies. “Very ready.”
“We don’t need any more time,” Margaret Brinson says, sighing. She wants to get it over with, like a prisoner facing the executioner. “We’re ready.”
We ride to the Hinkle Fieldhouse at Butler University, a gorgeous old gym where the basketball movie Hoosiers was filmed. Thanks to the supposed sanctity of college athletics, that great bastion of scholar-mercenaries, Gillette cannot conduct its publicity stunt at the RCA Dome, site of the Final Four, since the NCAA does not allow the stain of sponsor money to taint the virgin purity of their amateur tournament. No signs allowed in the arena! This from an organization that takes in hundreds of millions of dollars every year, mostly in CBS television rights and the rest in ticket sales and over-priced souvenirs.
The gym is packed with Indiana basketball fans, lured to the event by free pizza and plenty of Gillette-related gifts. When he’s introduced to the roaring crowd, John Brinson smiles warmly, but you can tell his blood has turned to ice. The portent of the moment has hit him, and no amount of blessings will put the basketball through the hoop. Only he can do that now.
Brinson retires to an auxiliary court to warm up. This is not a problem: Within five minutes of practice shots, he hands Margaret his nylon jacket; it’s soaking wet. Even more ominous foreshadowing follows: As Rick Barry urges him on with exhortations of “Legs and up!” John Brinson makes about one shot in 20. (I help scurry after the elusive rebounds.)
When an announcer calls out the two-minute-warning—”Two minutes to live national television!”—Brinson’s right hand goes to his chin, in a pensive repose. Who knows what he’s thinking? I’m too scared to open my mouth and ask.
Then, after a brief on-camera interview, with the crowd in a frenzy, John Brinson takes his million-dollar shot.
About halfway to the basket you can tell the ball isn’t going in. Brinson pulls his attempt to the left—as he did his putt—missing the rim. It’s a brick. John smiles graciously, but for a moment there is collective heartbreak in that Indianapolis gym. I feel like I’m going to cry—and then I realize I’ve been holding my breath since Brinson stepped to the line.
Rick Barry is disappointed. “He never got the legs into it. Never had a chance.” Eric Kraus, the Gillette official, is disappointed. “We can’t buy a winner! If we had a winner, they’d lose the check.” I’m disappointed.
The only one who isn’t disappointed is John Brinson. “You have no idea how fun that was,” he tells me. “This was a lot better than the putt. When I missed it the crowd wasn’t loud. This time it was loud, like they were all my family.” Brinson turns to a downcast congregation of Gillette functionaries, all of whom are doing a not very good job of keeping a stiff upper lip.
“Don’t worry, guys,” says the luckiest man in the world, for whom trillion-to-one odds are merely numbers on a sheet of paper. He flashes a consoling smile at his sponsors. “It’s all right. I’ll see you next year.”