On this episode of Sports Illustrated Weekly, the South Carolina Gamecocks are one of the best teams in women's basketball, and there once again headed back to the Final four. S I staffer Wilton Jackson talked to star player a Leah Boston on her quest for a championship, her journey from St. Thomas to South Carolina, and her ever changing personal style. And later we tell you about one lucky college basketball gambler who turned a single dollar bet into more than two hundred and thirty seven thousand dollars. We call him the parlay King of New Jersey. But first, the n C Double A Tournament features sixty four teams every year and sixty four mascots. But while you might have love for your school, we're about to tell you why your favorite mascot is a lie. It's Wednesday, March. I'm your host, John Gonzalez from Sports Illustrated and I Heart Radio. This is Sports Illustrated Weekly, Seconds and Gold for Friends, Get a cost, sectors a carcosts at. When it comes to March Madness, we're usually talking about the games and the players, when frankly, we should be more focused on the mascots. That's right, Those human sized animals that support their schools might be cute, but they're not very accurate. In fact, a special investigation by SI staff writer Connor Or and a Harvard scientist not making that up Harvard is involved here, reveals that many college mascots, maybe even your college mascot, well, they're a lie. That includes some of the teams in this weekend's Final four. And by the way, if you root for Kansas or any team with a wildcat for a mascot, this next part is gonna be taught, all right. So when I saw the story that most schools mascots were a lie and completely wrong, I didn't even have to look at the byeline. I already knew that it was you, Connor. But you had some special help on this. Tell us about the Harvard mammalogist and how you guys cooked up this very you kind of story. I've never had In some industries, they'll call this a tappen. You know, I've never had such a fantastically easy time and fun time working on a story before. So I had met Hopie Hoaxtro, who's the head of mammalogy at Harvard and in the animal studying Kingdom is the king of the animal studying. Kingdom just knows everything about all animals and uh. She was helping me with the project I was doing on quarterback evolution as opposed to animal evolution, and at the end of our call, she said, hey, you know, I've always wanted to this story. She's like, I went to a Minnesota basketball game and their gopher is not a Gopher, and so I started writing down a list of all the mascots that were wrong, and she's like, you know, do you think anybody would ever want to run that story? And I was like, I started looking around to make sure that there was no other sportswriters near me, and I was just like, I was like yes. It was like, we will run this story. Don't tell anyone about this and call me in two months. We're gonna run it during the tournament. It's gonna be my favorite thing ever. And she was so good, and I mean, she's a professor obviously is such a great communicator, and so I just ran what she told me and I was like, listen, this is gonna be your byeline. You know, I'm just here to facilitate this, and almost like a realtor I'm taking my three percent and getting out of here. But uh, Hope he was the rock star of this and she's uh just so smart and such a great communicator in such a curious mind that it made this a really fun thing to work on. I am so glad that you two crazy kids found each other because Hope he seemed to really enjoy going through this deeply strange process with you. And what I love about the pieces that I hope he kind of had this idea on her own when she was going through getting her PhD, long before the two of you met. She said that she didn't really follow college hoops, and she got interested in it because of March madness and because of the mascots. And one of the things that sort of made this idea Germany in her mind was she saw the Minnesota Golden Gophers. When I was a PhD student in Seattle, a lot of my research was focused on small mammals on rodents. So when I got the tickets and the teams were announced, and so for us, I got super excited that there was a team whose mask up was a road. And so this big golden thing comes marching out and then it turned around and it was very clear it was not a gopher. She literally screamed in the arena. That's when the gopher walked out, which is like probably the funniest thing you could tell in like in the middle of like a bunch of like drunk students, just there to watch a basketball game. But her expertise in the animal kingdom is road so this is her wheelhouse, and so this is like deeply offensive to her. And she's saying, the striping patterns are all wrong. I gopher, these are subterranean mammals that are uniform in color. The tail isn't right. That had this giant fluffy tail. The gopher has like a little teeny nub and it's not furry. So she starts like while a basketball game is taking place, starts going through the checklist. She's like, you know, is it a beaver? And they just thought it might have been a beaver? Now is it a chipmunk? And she's like no, And then all of a sudden she comes up and she's like, I'm convinced it's a golden mantled ground squirrel. She says this to me on the phone and then I google it and I'm like, holy this is what it is, and and it was like unbelievable to me. And then she was so upset that she actually wrote a letter to the athletic director at the University of Minnesota and she's like, you guys screwed this up. I'm a PhD in mammalogy. If anybody would know what a gopher looks like, it's me and that is not a gopher. And she said, I never heard back, but she did do a guest lecture at Minnesota ten years later after she became like the boss of Animals, Like if the animal video game, she's the last person that you have to beat in order to secure the metal or whatever it is. She did a lecture at Minnesota and Mike drop moments She's like, by the way, your mascot's a lie. It's remarkable to me that you found your mirror image in a Harvard PhD. Like I never would have guessed that, but you have. It's the truth. Uh So, one of the things that the two of you identified as maybe the most egregious violation in mascot dumb is the term wildcat. Right every school out there is basically the wildcat. Now we're in the NC double a tournament, we're reaching its conclusion. But of the sixty four teams in the tournament this year, I believe seventy of them had wildcat mascots. So what's the general big picture problem with the term wildcats? So this, uh, it actually made me almost tear up laughing when she told me this, because I didn't know wildcat was a real thing. I thought it was just like a wild cat, you know, that's what you just said, and it was something that some guy said and it became a thing. It's like, no, wildcat is a real animal, and it is essentially the size and temperament of a domesticated American house cat. So they're slightly stock here and slightly longer lights than a domestic housecat, and apparently they're not particularly fierce very much. Yeah. I just loved the idea of all these schools playing these like sounds like their stadium and like it's more of a me out Like. It made me just die laughing to think that like all of these rough and tumble schools are like basically just like should be trotting out a house cat. I would love if they did that. I want them to live their truth. I think that would be wonderful, I and pro cat. But I want to go through because you guys went through some of the specific schools and what's wrong with their individual version of wildcats. We're gonna start with the Arizona Wildcats. So, yeah, the Arizona has Wilbur and Wilma, who are married. They used to have a live Bobcat as their mascot, like a hundred years ago, and Wilbur the wildcat is actually a bobcat. Wilbur has this fringe on the space that looked a little bit more like a bobcat. So at some point along the line that probably signals got crossed, wires got crossed, and uh, all of a sudden they became the wildcats. But they should be the bobcats. They should be the bobcats, all right? What about the Northwestern Wildcats? Pretty disappointing considering well, I'm a Syracuse guys, so I love banging on Northwestern any shime I get a chance. You know, this supposed institution of higher learning can't even figure out that they have a links. This one is gray, very fluffy white patches on his face, doesn't have any stripes, and doesn't have a tail that white fringe is characteristics of a link. They didn't even have stripes on Willie the Wildcat, which is like the defining characteristic of a wildcat, completely wrong. They're faulty as well, as is Kansas State. The Kansas State Wildcats, Yeah, Willie the Wildcat, another one named Willie the Wildcat. Sure. Kansas State, to me was most clearly a mountain lion. Sleek physique, very small ears, uniform color, hair, all that stuff, defining characteristics of a mountain lion, not a wildcat. Arguably in no disrespect to the other schools on this list that have screwed up the wildcat, but arguably the most famous of the group, the Kentucky Wildcats. The Kentucky Wildcat is actually a mountain lion. But the funny part about this is they even screwed up the mountain lion. Kentucky was the most mountain lions like, but it likes Kansas State and all of these other ones. One of the problems that none of them have a tail. If you're gonna have a cat mascot, you're gonna need a tail. But the Kentucky Wildcats made their wildcat a mountain lion, but then didn't give the Mountain mine a tail. So there's is so biologically incorrect that it's almost distracting, especially to the folks in Hope's realm. I love it warms my heart in fact, how much all of these institutions of higher learning have royally screwed up their mascots. What I love a little less though, is, of all of these schools with wildcat names as mascots, the one that got closest to the actual mark is one from Philadelphia. And it pains me because you were saying, as a graduate of Syracuse, you love to bang on. The Northwestern is a graduate of LaSalle, a Philly school and a Big five rival. I have been trained to loathe Villanova, and yet Villanova. I hate to say this, but it seems that they got this mostly right. They nailed it will d Cat, which loved the name, um everything about Villanova's tom goa. So Villanova is the one that I think qualifies as a wildcat. And it has a long tale and it even has some stripes on its head. So if you had to kind of spread out and look at all of the wildcats, that is the most wildcat looking wildcat. Still not true to Villanova, if it was true to Villanova, the wildcat would have an ascot and a snifter of brandy. And until it does, it's fraudulent. But I do like Jay Wright, so I'm willing to let it go. I want to run a couple of other non wildcat mascots past you. I can't believe I'm about to ask this, but what should the TCU horned frogs actually be called? John? We're about to open up a deep wormhole here, and so this is what's really interesting, right, So the TCU horned frogs are actually horned lizards. Sure, the horned lizards are native to Texas, but they're very squat and spiky, and so people mistakenly call them horned toads or horny toads. Horny toads obviously would not be a good college trascot name anywhere. Seems problematic. Yeah, and the coolest thing TCU is totally missing the boat here, because the horned lizard, as a defense mechanism, shoots its own blood out of its eyes at things attacking it, and so like, why would you miss the chance, like as a rival mascot if you're coming into the arena just to like shower the opposing student section in blood from your eyes? You know. Uh, I just think they're missing a huge opportunity. Forget about the flower with the clown that shoots water. This would be animal blood blood. Yeah, animal blood right out of your eye. That's just a good bet. That's fun for the whole family. Yeah, it's yeah. You bring your kids to TCU games and yeah, mommy and daddy. What's wrong with that mascot's eyes? Yeah, it's perfect. Now there is a horned frog, but it's native to South America. It looks nothing like the TCU mascot, and it's this very fat, sort of blobbery animal, and you don't want that. So TCU has screwed this up, as has Delaware, as Hope sees it. What's wrong with the fighting blue hens? So the blue hen is a breed of chicken, So the full name is blue hen chickens and hens. Of course, it's what female chickens are called, but it's the male chickens that finarily do the fighting. So biologically it's just sort of backwards. They're like what you would want to call they would have to be the fighting blue hen chickens. You would need the name in there is the qualifier that you would not mistakenly associate the females with the fighters, because they don't they don't fight, all right, So Delaware has to go back to the drawing board as well. Last one for you, and this one I love hope. He absolutely dunks on Kansas. How messed up is the Jayhawk? And she wrote the last line of this, so we were sending back in fourth drafts of the story and then she's like, it would be funny to end it this way, and it's true. She's like a Kansas jayhawk is neither a J or a hawk the end. And I was like, oh, like, it's just like one of those like I wish like there was a million other people in my office that could have screamed when I read that, But uh yeah, she's just uh, there's nothing like sharp academics to just cut through all the crap in the n C double A, and she does it like a hot knife. It's phenomenal. Neither a J nor hawk. You through the alleys, she throws down the youp. You can read his delightfully bizarre dispatch along with Harvard's Hopie hop Stra on si dot com. She's the mammalogist. He's the freak of nature. Honor or as always your delight, Thank you for this, thank you. After a break, we check in with one of the best players in women's college basketball, South Carolina's a Leah Boston. Almost exactly one year ago in San Antonio, South Carolina's women's basketball team experienced a moment they would rather forget. Two seconds left, Boston follow just missus a deposer Stanford escapes. That lost to Stanford stung the entire game Cox team, especially their star Aliah Boston, who had missed a last second shot from the paint which would have won the game, and then she left the court in tears, the heart and soul of the South Carolina team overcome with emotion after she was unable to finish, then put back at the poser. In the off season, Aliah Boston channeled her frustration into getting better, even working out with Tim Duncan, her fellow forward from the US Virgin Islands. Simply put, she's been on a mission, Boston. The footwork and the finish she has looked break. They are playing Brooper at the high host using a lot of hand I'm just a dominant player, hard working definitely competitive. This weekend, she leads the top ranks. South Carolina game Cox back to the Final four and a shot at redemption. Game Cocks are becoming a staple in the Final Four. They'll be there for the fourth time. Eliah Boston brought it with nineteen points today. They got the ball inside, they dominated defensively. That's what South Carolina and it needed to look like. Going to Minneapolis, Sports Illustrated staffer Wilton Jackson spoke with the Leah Boston and her Hall of Fame coach Don Staley about this historic season in which Boston has been named SEC Player of the Year, finalist for National Player of the Year, and Academic All America for this second time. Oh yeah, and while she was keeping up that g p A, she also managed to set a new SEC record for consecutive double doubles twenty seven double doubles in a role for a Lea Boston. As we can see, there's nothing like they're in the country. A Leah Boston's journey to Don staley South Carolina team began in her native St. Thomas, a pretty idyllic place to grow up, but only twelve years old, Boston moved to the Mainland to play high level prep basketball outside of while outside of Boston, Massachusetts, a place that is not exactly known for sunshine and palm trees. The way there absolutely was like the biggest transition considering those he doesn't get cold and St. Thomas, So that's definitely the first one. But basketball, I mean, it was just a great experience. I don't think it was too hard necessarily. Who were just playing more, which was good for me. We made that move. You essentially, we're leaving from living with your mom and you were gonna be living with your aunt and your cousin. It was different, but I mean my aunt made its same family home. There are certain foods that you like from the islands, like you know, ox Shales, you like. I've heard a lot of people say everybody can't cook those foods, correct pod can She can cook it, and she made sure she did so. She definitely kept us going with that. Um. She would definitely make island foods every once in a while and just cook it up and we're just snash snash it all down right there saying no, ma'am. Access to that probably up Boston halfway through the second quarter, and another one back to back. She says, Look, they're not telling you before I don't come in here. Do you want to try to gain it's dominant as you are? What keeps you going to get better each day? I think it's just how much I love the sport and like where I want to go with it. I want to go to the league, and you know, there are a lot of talented women in the league, and they're also not a lot of roster spots. You can't say that, oh, I'm gonna start working on my craft when I get the league or something like that, because then it's gonna be way too late, and you need that work ethic when you get there to know that, oh, I have to get better. I have to be able to beat somebody off the dribble now, because now people are gonna play me for a jump shot, and so they're gonna be on me, but now I have to figure out a way to get around them. I just want to get better, and if I get better, then my team will probably get better, and then whom we win. I stayment game as they head to the biggest stage and women's basketball, you want to be playing your best basketball right now, especially just when I was starting out just playing basketball like I wasn't good, So I just hated the fact that I was in So I just wanted to get better and playing against like my older sister. If we ever played one on one or even played against my dad, my dad playing two on one first me, my sister and us still losing to the heartbreak, Well, I'm sure you probably couldn't beat you guys, now for sure? Oh absolutely not. We pull a hamstring. What's your relationship with like your mom and your dad? Now, I talked to my dad and my mom often. My mom makes Sharon calls every day. She probably already called my phone this morn bank. We talked every day. We every night. We have a family Bible study that we go on together. So we're talking there and discussing God. But we're a pretty good relationship. Their family of faith, their family that pray together. They're rooted in God. They're so positive. You know, you could have a bad day, they'll spin it and they'll end up making you feel good. So I knew what we were getting in that, and I knew we're getting into a basketball player. I didn't not, however, know that the transformation of her game. I didn't know that would come as quickly, and it only came this quickly because of her and the work that she puts in behind closed doors. I think I've become mentally tough, tougher than I was freshman years. I mean, I still put a lot of pressure on myself, but I give myself more chances to mess up. I think that's the best thing that I can say for me, because once I get up here in my head and everything starts twisting and twirling up there, it's not good and it messes me up even more than I probably thought that I was doing. And so now I don't do that, and I give myself at least three shots to miss before I started thinking. So, I mean that's progress. When you put on a South Carolina uniform, describe that feeling to me. I mean, I think it's the best feeling. It's just because you know what type of environment we have here, the competitive environment, the family aspect of it all. So it's just you put this jersey on, It's like I'm playing for my family. Um, everybody here wants to win, and when we step on that court, everybody just wants to make each other better. And I think that's all you can ask for in a team, and then we have a great coaching staff. How much do you value coach stan What does she mean to you? She means everything. I mean, she's helped me get so far with my um college career and I'm just so thankful for her. And she's just a great example of what you want to be in life and things you want to do. So really blessed to have her. When it comes to basketball, I'll definitely say it's just about continued to be dominant and playing the way that I know how to play. But off the court, it's about getting what you want. Being a black woman in society is just it's just different. You're at a disadvantage. Things are gonna be hard, but that doesn't stop you. I mean even when you see coach Daley on Twitter when some things are happening. I mean, she's not afraid to use her voice. That's just a great example for us, because it's like, don't be afraid to say how you feel just because you know people might not agree with you. Let me ask you this, and this has nothing to do specifically with the basketball, but for me, and I don't know if anybody has ever told this but I truly admired that you changed the color of your hair often. Thank you, I do. I love that because I was I saw the picture I think Coach Staley had posted. I think she may have tagged East me in and it it was like, you know, changed the picture to this with your braids going back and then like teal blue color. Is it any particular, like you know meaning behind it or is this something that you just like to do. I got braids and started playing braids in high school, but it's always just like black or brown. But then in college when I started to braiding my hair, I was like, oh, what if I tried like this color? And then after I tried one color, I was like, okay, well let's try this one. And I'm just like running to even I changed my colors all the time. I'm running out of like combinations, so I'll go like a solid like all purple. But I think it's time as long as it's not like black or brown, I'm absolutely okay with it. Absolutely. What would you say, is like your favorite your favorite color or your favorite combination. I like, I really like purple and blue dot combo. The red was just nice. I had a nice pink one two, So I would say, like purple blue, red pink. I've never seen somebody have their great different colors you know some times, but I think it's fascinating. So definitely keep doing. You have my vote for sure. Thank you. I know you like doing TikTok videos. Would you say TikTok is your favorite social media platform? I guess I would say that because I'll post a TikTok any time, like it's fine. I mean, I'll dance. You might not like it, but you'll see it. What does coach say, think about you guys when y're all are dancing and stuff? Mm, she thinks my dancing has gotten a lot better that from the first time I said on campus. So we take that as a pro. She's been a couple of them who on the team. Would you not let date your child of the evossing because she ain't given h She is everything that you will want a player to be. Low maintenance, hardworking, the satiable desire to get better. She wants it, and she's the best teammate Basketball has an incredible way of just repaying her, like is repaying her right now for being that that good teammate and for putting a network like she, one of her teammates and herself. The experience. One of it is to win a national championship. For everybody, the major goal is the national championship, and I definitely think we all think about that and what's gonna happen. Aliah Boston and Don Staley South Carolina GAMECOCKX are playing in the Final Four this weekend. Wilson Jackson's article is titled she wanted a scholarship Now She's the face of women's college basketball. Will post a link on our show notes after a break the wild true story of one lucky gambler who turned twenty five dollars into more than two hundred and thirty seven thousand. With more states legalizing sports gambling, more people are finding different ways to bet on college basketball, and increasingly they're doing it online. According to reports, it was expected that billions, yes billions, will be bet on March Madness by the time it wraps up this weekend. Maybe some of those gamblers will do well and hit some of their bets, but I'm betting that none of them will do as well as a man who had a twenty five team parlay this season four hundreds of thousands of dollars. Kevin Lrose, four years old. I live in Cornora at New Jersey, and I own the Rose Construction. So where in Jersey is that eggit twelve? First of all, a round of applause for anyone who answers that question with a turnpike exit number. Kevin is exactly the kind of better that mobile sports books were trying to win over, and they did. Jeff Bucky, of course, se do you miss those days? Now? You know? I actually like this better. I don't care if they take the taxes. You've got a lot more opportunities using the sports app than the bookies will ever give you. Yeah, and you don't have to track down your bookie afterwards either. I never had to do that. Then guys are on the money with me. That's good to hear. Prior to this, Kevin, what's the most ever won? I went over a hundred thousand plus once a couple of times I hit fifty six thousand. You know this is what illegal? Yeah, yeah, we won't tell anybody. Yeah, well it is what it is. You know. I hit him again about a year later for a hundred, and he was not happy. They called me to parlay over here with the book he's that's right. We are in the presence of royalty. Kevin LeRose, the parlay King of New Jersey. And who better to describe what a parlay actually is. Well, when you put a lot of teams together, so when you put them together, you get a higher payout and a parla. You have to hit all of the legs of your parlay in order to win everyone. You can't miss one. So for a twenty five dollar bit, which one I put on that parley, I got the two seven thousand on that. You heard that right? Kevin LeRose bet twenty five dollars on a twenty five leg parlay, and he hit it and won two hundred and thirty seven thousand, five hundred and fifty three dollars and eleven cents. The eleven cents, you cannot forget. It was the largest ever payout from Caesar's on a parlay bet to that point. Now, before Kevin was the story of his moonshot bet. Let's take a moment to remember that gambling is addictive. And if you have a problem, or I think you might, please call one gambler to see counseling. And now here's the story of Kevin le Rose, the Parley King of New Jersey, and his wild legs. That day, I got hit early. One of my teams lost on the first game. Well, I liked my bets, so I reput the bet in immediately. That was at three o'clock. I started at for some reason, their website was shaky. You know, sometimes when everybody's betting, you have a problem. So I did it once. It kicked it out. I put the same teams down again, tried to do it again. It kicked me out the third time. I'm already at one minute to three these games. Some of them games were three o'clock games, and I'm telling you, at three o'clock you're out. I had to reload. It was three or two when that beat went in, which is unheard of. I've never got to bed in after three o'clock. So that was lucky right there. And then from that point on I never lost the game. It just kept on winning and winning. I looked at it around six o'clock, I had about twelve teams all wins. I was winning a lot of the other games. I went out and did a couple of errands from my wife, went to a sushi bar. My buddy yowns it. Had a couple of drinks with him. I had five games to go. I told him, this is really good. You know, I don't know, I said, I liked the teams I got left. I think I got this. So I went home. By the time I got home, two of them already won. So I was down to three. I told my wife the names to the team. She looks up. She goes one of them, just one. I said, well, down to two. When U c l A was I was doing a money on that they're up by twenty. So I was in sweating that it was wyoming. They were given eight. At halftime, they were up twelve points. Well, the other team, which was Utah Valley, came out and they went on a fourteen to two run. Next thing I know, I'm down a point or two. I ain't looking good. I'm six minutes and I'm still down. They're going back and forth. My team is struggling out of nowhere, you know how college basketball is. They come on and they go onto seventeen to two run. At two minutes, I was at eight, and then around seven I was at nine. I said, I got it, man, I said, I'm feeling good about this. I said nine, but you know you can't. You know, still a minute and a half left, and then nothing happens. I'm watching CBS Sports because the game wasn't on TV. I'm waiting for the updates, you know how they are slow, And all of a sudden, I see twelve seconds left. I'm up by twelve points. So whatever happened in between, I hit a three or whatever, I'm up by twelve or twelve. I looked at my wifes, I got this. I shut the app down. I went in and I saw the congratulations. You just want to thirty seven thousand, eight hundred and or on dollars? I was like, yeah, you can't beat that. I mean, no, you really can't beat that. I mean it's literally the most money that's ever paid out on a parlay in Caesar's Palace history. Previously, the biggest amount of money was about three thousand dollars, so you eclipse that many times over. So when you hit for that much money, you have twenty five games in one day, you won them all. Kevin, you won hundreds of thousands of dollars. What's your reaction to that? How do you celebrate something like that. Well, you know, for a few seconds there, I just was like, you know, I gave a couple of fist bumps and kissed my wife and I said, uh, I got a nice bottle of the time you want to have if the camera was on, I have an entire wine selection behind me. It's amazing, and it's even better than now that I won. Only thought. So I pulled out a really really good bottle of red wine, Brunelli Deep Maulticino. That's like one of the best wines you can get in Italian and uh, I popped that corp open and it was like a fourth thirty in the water. We were celebrating. So I bet you were so after you hit for this amount of money, you're celebrating, you're drinking your good wine. I would imagine you get to puff your chest out a little bit. You tell your friends and family who are the Who are the people that you called and told them? Yeah, I told a few people, you know, a couple of close friends with a couple of my family. You know, not too many people. I didn't go out of my way to to let everybody know anything that you're going to use the money for do you have an earmark for something other than wine? Well, I put something the bank, I paid some bills off and now trying to whack him again to be part from the honest with you, and it's only a matter of time. College basketball is your favorite thing to bet on. Why is that? Well, because they play hard, and they play all the way through, and you get the pros. They don't care if they win by ten or twenties, as long as they get to win. We're in college. You're ranked by how bad you beat a team. So if you're given a certain amount of points, you can almost count on that team pushing it right to the last moment because they want to get higher in the rankings. So you have less chances of a team saying okay, we got it and pulling all their starters out and putting the second streamers in. So you're mostly college in this parlay, and this like parlay, you have mostly money launch. You have a couple of NBA games in there. You had the grizz money line, you had the Clippers money line. But how did you select these games? Were there any dart throws where he said, Hey, I'm just gonna take a shot on this or were you methodical about everything? I'm methodical. I check them all out. I know what games, what what teams are playing here, you know, And I check out what their history is with this particular team. I I like to see how much they lose by to other teams that are as good or better on the road. How will they play on the at home? And I take a lot of into consideration. I study for hours. There had to be some close calls in there. You couldn't have won every game comfortably. What was the game that you were looking at and you thought, Man, I'm sweating this one a little bit. You want to know something. I put these bets in sometimes and I just walk away and I don't really I once in a while looped up the phone and I look and just I don't look at the scores. I look into the app the season is app to see how many games I won. I don't even like to see the scores most of the time, because, to be honest with you, there was one game I was down twenty points and my team came back from twenty down and with the last second bucket won the game. Now, if I had been watching that, I would have had no more nails on my hand. I don't you know, I don't need to go through that kind of stress. I don't blame you. I just want to see whether I want You know, well, you do. You definitely did win. But so the game that you end up winning the whole thing on you mentioned Wyoming over Utah Valley. I didn't know that Utah Valley exists. So explain to me how you end up on this game and you think to yourself, you know what, Wyoming's really got it over this school that John Gonzalez doesn't know exists. You know, I like Wyoming. Wyoming is an actually good basketball team. You know, I'm looking at Utah Valley and I looked at so many games they played and they didn't play very good teams, and uh, when they did, they got beat pretty good. But that doesn't mean anything because as a team goes on in the season, they start to fix problems that they had and they aren't out some wrinkles, and maybe they still lose, but they play better, you know. And that's what happened here. So Utah Valley came into Wyoming and they played a really good game. The beauty of it was is that they ultimately lost by the spread and more. And that's all I care about, you know. Kevin LeRose, the parlay King of Central New Jersey in the winner of the biggest parley in Caesar's history. Well played, Hey, John, I'm looking forward to having another conversation with you, with me winning another two hundred or four hundred thousand dollars hopefully, and if that happens, I'll be talking to you then. Good luck, my friend. You've gotta brother, have a good one to enjoy it, appreciate it, take care. Sports Illustrated Weekly is a production of Sports Illustrated and I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your favorite shows. And for more of Sports Illustrated, its best stories and podcasts, visit SI dot com. This episode of Sports Illustrated Weekly was produced by Cooper McKim, Jessica your Moski, and Isaac Lee, who was also our sound engineer. Our senior producer is Dan Bloom. Our executive producers are Scott Brody and me John Gonzaltz. Our theme song is by Nolan Either. Thanks for listening and if you've stuck around this long, we leave you with this. I'm watching this thing shoot blood out of its eyes. It's like unbelievable. This is like the coolest thing I've ever seen.

On this episode of Sports Illustrated Weekly, the South Carolina Gamecocks are one of the best teams in women's basketball, and there once again headed back to the Final four. S I staffer Wilton Jackson talked to star player a Leah Boston on her quest for a championship, her journey from St. Thomas to South Carolina, and her ever changing personal style. And later we tell you about one lucky college basketball gambler who turned a single dollar bet into more than two hundred and thirty seven thousand dollars. We call him the parlay King of New Jersey. But first, the n C Double A Tournament features sixty four teams every year and sixty four mascots. But while you might have love for your school, we're about to tell you why your favorite mascot is a lie. It's Wednesday, March. I'm your host, John Gonzalez from Sports Illustrated and I Heart Radio. This is Sports Illustrated Weekly, Seconds and Gold for Friends, Get a cost, sectors a carcosts at. When it comes to March Madness, we're usually talking about the games and the players, when frankly, we should be more focused on the mascots. That's right, Those human sized animals that support their schools might be cute, but they're not very accurate. In fact, a special investigation by SI staff writer Connor Or and a Harvard scientist not making that up Harvard is involved here, reveals that many college mascots, maybe even your college mascot, well, they're a lie. That includes some of the teams in this weekend's Final four. And by the way, if you root for Kansas or any team with a wildcat for a mascot, this next part is gonna be taught, all right. So when I saw the story that most schools mascots were a lie and completely wrong, I didn't even have to look at the byeline. I already knew that it was you, Connor. But you had some special help on this. Tell us about the Harvard mammalogist and how you guys cooked up this very you kind of story. I've never had In some industries, they'll call this a tappen. You know, I've never had such a fantastically easy time and fun time working on a story before. So I had met Hopie Hoaxtro, who's the head of mammalogy at Harvard and in the animal studying Kingdom is the king of the animal studying. Kingdom just knows everything about all animals and uh. She was helping me with the project I was doing on quarterback evolution as opposed to animal evolution, and at the end of our call, she said, hey, you know, I've always wanted to this story. She's like, I went to a Minnesota basketball game and their gopher is not a Gopher, and so I started writing down a list of all the mascots that were wrong, and she's like, you know, do you think anybody would ever want to run that story? And I was like, I started looking around to make sure that there was no other sportswriters near me, and I was just like, I was like yes. It was like, we will run this story. Don't tell anyone about this and call me in two months. We're gonna run it during the tournament. It's gonna be my favorite thing ever. And she was so good, and I mean, she's a professor obviously is such a great communicator, and so I just ran what she told me and I was like, listen, this is gonna be your byeline. You know, I'm just here to facilitate this, and almost like a realtor I'm taking my three percent and getting out of here. But uh, Hope he was the rock star of this and she's uh just so smart and such a great communicator in such a curious mind that it made this a really fun thing to work on. I am so glad that you two crazy kids found each other because Hope he seemed to really enjoy going through this deeply strange process with you. And what I love about the pieces that I hope he kind of had this idea on her own when she was going through getting her PhD, long before the two of you met. She said that she didn't really follow college hoops, and she got interested in it because of March madness and because of the mascots. And one of the things that sort of made this idea Germany in her mind was she saw the Minnesota Golden Gophers. When I was a PhD student in Seattle, a lot of my research was focused on small mammals on rodents. So when I got the tickets and the teams were announced, and so for us, I got super excited that there was a team whose mask up was a road. And so this big golden thing comes marching out and then it turned around and it was very clear it was not a gopher. She literally screamed in the arena. That's when the gopher walked out, which is like probably the funniest thing you could tell in like in the middle of like a bunch of like drunk students, just there to watch a basketball game. But her expertise in the animal kingdom is road so this is her wheelhouse, and so this is like deeply offensive to her. And she's saying, the striping patterns are all wrong. I gopher, these are subterranean mammals that are uniform in color. The tail isn't right. That had this giant fluffy tail. The gopher has like a little teeny nub and it's not furry. So she starts like while a basketball game is taking place, starts going through the checklist. She's like, you know, is it a beaver? And they just thought it might have been a beaver? Now is it a chipmunk? And she's like no, And then all of a sudden she comes up and she's like, I'm convinced it's a golden mantled ground squirrel. She says this to me on the phone and then I google it and I'm like, holy this is what it is, and and it was like unbelievable to me. And then she was so upset that she actually wrote a letter to the athletic director at the University of Minnesota and she's like, you guys screwed this up. I'm a PhD in mammalogy. If anybody would know what a gopher looks like, it's me and that is not a gopher. And she said, I never heard back, but she did do a guest lecture at Minnesota ten years later after she became like the boss of Animals, Like if the animal video game, she's the last person that you have to beat in order to secure the metal or whatever it is. She did a lecture at Minnesota and Mike drop moments She's like, by the way, your mascot's a lie. It's remarkable to me that you found your mirror image in a Harvard PhD. Like I never would have guessed that, but you have. It's the truth. Uh So, one of the things that the two of you identified as maybe the most egregious violation in mascot dumb is the term wildcat. Right every school out there is basically the wildcat. Now we're in the NC double a tournament, we're reaching its conclusion. But of the sixty four teams in the tournament this year, I believe seventy of them had wildcat mascots. So what's the general big picture problem with the term wildcats? So this, uh, it actually made me almost tear up laughing when she told me this, because I didn't know wildcat was a real thing. I thought it was just like a wild cat, you know, that's what you just said, and it was something that some guy said and it became a thing. It's like, no, wildcat is a real animal, and it is essentially the size and temperament of a domesticated American house cat. So they're slightly stock here and slightly longer lights than a domestic housecat, and apparently they're not particularly fierce very much. Yeah. I just loved the idea of all these schools playing these like sounds like their stadium and like it's more of a me out Like. It made me just die laughing to think that like all of these rough and tumble schools are like basically just like should be trotting out a house cat. I would love if they did that. I want them to live their truth. I think that would be wonderful, I and pro cat. But I want to go through because you guys went through some of the specific schools and what's wrong with their individual version of wildcats. We're gonna start with the Arizona Wildcats. So, yeah, the Arizona has Wilbur and Wilma, who are married. They used to have a live Bobcat as their mascot, like a hundred years ago, and Wilbur the wildcat is actually a bobcat. Wilbur has this fringe on the space that looked a little bit more like a bobcat. So at some point along the line that probably signals got crossed, wires got crossed, and uh, all of a sudden they became the wildcats. But they should be the bobcats. They should be the bobcats, all right? What about the Northwestern Wildcats? Pretty disappointing considering well, I'm a Syracuse guys, so I love banging on Northwestern any shime I get a chance. You know, this supposed institution of higher learning can't even figure out that they have a links. This one is gray, very fluffy white patches on his face, doesn't have any stripes, and doesn't have a tail that white fringe is characteristics of a link. They didn't even have stripes on Willie the Wildcat, which is like the defining characteristic of a wildcat, completely wrong. They're faulty as well, as is Kansas State. The Kansas State Wildcats, Yeah, Willie the Wildcat, another one named Willie the Wildcat. Sure. Kansas State, to me was most clearly a mountain lion. Sleek physique, very small ears, uniform color, hair, all that stuff, defining characteristics of a mountain lion, not a wildcat. Arguably in no disrespect to the other schools on this list that have screwed up the wildcat, but arguably the most famous of the group, the Kentucky Wildcats. The Kentucky Wildcat is actually a mountain lion. But the funny part about this is they even screwed up the mountain lion. Kentucky was the most mountain lions like, but it likes Kansas State and all of these other ones. One of the problems that none of them have a tail. If you're gonna have a cat mascot, you're gonna need a tail. But the Kentucky Wildcats made their wildcat a mountain lion, but then didn't give the Mountain mine a tail. So there's is so biologically incorrect that it's almost distracting, especially to the folks in Hope's realm. I love it warms my heart in fact, how much all of these institutions of higher learning have royally screwed up their mascots. What I love a little less though, is, of all of these schools with wildcat names as mascots, the one that got closest to the actual mark is one from Philadelphia. And it pains me because you were saying, as a graduate of Syracuse, you love to bang on. The Northwestern is a graduate of LaSalle, a Philly school and a Big five rival. I have been trained to loathe Villanova, and yet Villanova. I hate to say this, but it seems that they got this mostly right. They nailed it will d Cat, which loved the name, um everything about Villanova's tom goa. So Villanova is the one that I think qualifies as a wildcat. And it has a long tale and it even has some stripes on its head. So if you had to kind of spread out and look at all of the wildcats, that is the most wildcat looking wildcat. Still not true to Villanova, if it was true to Villanova, the wildcat would have an ascot and a snifter of brandy. And until it does, it's fraudulent. But I do like Jay Wright, so I'm willing to let it go. I want to run a couple of other non wildcat mascots past you. I can't believe I'm about to ask this, but what should the TCU horned frogs actually be called? John? We're about to open up a deep wormhole here, and so this is what's really interesting, right, So the TCU horned frogs are actually horned lizards. Sure, the horned lizards are native to Texas, but they're very squat and spiky, and so people mistakenly call them horned toads or horny toads. Horny toads obviously would not be a good college trascot name anywhere. Seems problematic. Yeah, and the coolest thing TCU is totally missing the boat here, because the horned lizard, as a defense mechanism, shoots its own blood out of its eyes at things attacking it, and so like, why would you miss the chance, like as a rival mascot if you're coming into the arena just to like shower the opposing student section in blood from your eyes? You know. Uh, I just think they're missing a huge opportunity. Forget about the flower with the clown that shoots water. This would be animal blood blood. Yeah, animal blood right out of your eye. That's just a good bet. That's fun for the whole family. Yeah, it's yeah. You bring your kids to TCU games and yeah, mommy and daddy. What's wrong with that mascot's eyes? Yeah, it's perfect. Now there is a horned frog, but it's native to South America. It looks nothing like the TCU mascot, and it's this very fat, sort of blobbery animal, and you don't want that. So TCU has screwed this up, as has Delaware, as Hope sees it. What's wrong with the fighting blue hens? So the blue hen is a breed of chicken, So the full name is blue hen chickens and hens. Of course, it's what female chickens are called, but it's the male chickens that finarily do the fighting. So biologically it's just sort of backwards. They're like what you would want to call they would have to be the fighting blue hen chickens. You would need the name in there is the qualifier that you would not mistakenly associate the females with the fighters, because they don't they don't fight, all right, So Delaware has to go back to the drawing board as well. Last one for you, and this one I love hope. He absolutely dunks on Kansas. How messed up is the Jayhawk? And she wrote the last line of this, so we were sending back in fourth drafts of the story and then she's like, it would be funny to end it this way, and it's true. She's like a Kansas jayhawk is neither a J or a hawk the end. And I was like, oh, like, it's just like one of those like I wish like there was a million other people in my office that could have screamed when I read that, But uh yeah, she's just uh, there's nothing like sharp academics to just cut through all the crap in the n C double A, and she does it like a hot knife. It's phenomenal. Neither a J nor hawk. You through the alleys, she throws down the youp. You can read his delightfully bizarre dispatch along with Harvard's Hopie hop Stra on si dot com. She's the mammalogist. He's the freak of nature. Honor or as always your delight, Thank you for this, thank you. After a break, we check in with one of the best players in women's college basketball, South Carolina's a Leah Boston. Almost exactly one year ago in San Antonio, South Carolina's women's basketball team experienced a moment they would rather forget. Two seconds left, Boston follow just missus a deposer Stanford escapes. That lost to Stanford stung the entire game Cox team, especially their star Aliah Boston, who had missed a last second shot from the paint which would have won the game, and then she left the court in tears, the heart and soul of the South Carolina team overcome with emotion after she was unable to finish, then put back at the poser. In the off season, Aliah Boston channeled her frustration into getting better, even working out with Tim Duncan, her fellow forward from the US Virgin Islands. Simply put, she's been on a mission, Boston. The footwork and the finish she has looked break. They are playing Brooper at the high host using a lot of hand I'm just a dominant player, hard working definitely competitive. This weekend, she leads the top ranks. South Carolina game Cox back to the Final four and a shot at redemption. Game Cocks are becoming a staple in the Final Four. They'll be there for the fourth time. Eliah Boston brought it with nineteen points today. They got the ball inside, they dominated defensively. That's what South Carolina and it needed to look like. Going to Minneapolis, Sports Illustrated staffer Wilton Jackson spoke with the Leah Boston and her Hall of Fame coach Don Staley about this historic season in which Boston has been named SEC Player of the Year, finalist for National Player of the Year, and Academic All America for this second time. Oh yeah, and while she was keeping up that g p A, she also managed to set a new SEC record for consecutive double doubles twenty seven double doubles in a role for a Lea Boston. As we can see, there's nothing like they're in the country. A Leah Boston's journey to Don staley South Carolina team began in her native St. Thomas, a pretty idyllic place to grow up, but only twelve years old, Boston moved to the Mainland to play high level prep basketball outside of while outside of Boston, Massachusetts, a place that is not exactly known for sunshine and palm trees. The way there absolutely was like the biggest transition considering those he doesn't get cold and St. Thomas, So that's definitely the first one. But basketball, I mean, it was just a great experience. I don't think it was too hard necessarily. Who were just playing more, which was good for me. We made that move. You essentially, we're leaving from living with your mom and you were gonna be living with your aunt and your cousin. It was different, but I mean my aunt made its same family home. There are certain foods that you like from the islands, like you know, ox Shales, you like. I've heard a lot of people say everybody can't cook those foods, correct pod can She can cook it, and she made sure she did so. She definitely kept us going with that. Um. She would definitely make island foods every once in a while and just cook it up and we're just snash snash it all down right there saying no, ma'am. Access to that probably up Boston halfway through the second quarter, and another one back to back. She says, Look, they're not telling you before I don't come in here. Do you want to try to gain it's dominant as you are? What keeps you going to get better each day? I think it's just how much I love the sport and like where I want to go with it. I want to go to the league, and you know, there are a lot of talented women in the league, and they're also not a lot of roster spots. You can't say that, oh, I'm gonna start working on my craft when I get the league or something like that, because then it's gonna be way too late, and you need that work ethic when you get there to know that, oh, I have to get better. I have to be able to beat somebody off the dribble now, because now people are gonna play me for a jump shot, and so they're gonna be on me, but now I have to figure out a way to get around them. I just want to get better, and if I get better, then my team will probably get better, and then whom we win. I stayment game as they head to the biggest stage and women's basketball, you want to be playing your best basketball right now, especially just when I was starting out just playing basketball like I wasn't good, So I just hated the fact that I was in So I just wanted to get better and playing against like my older sister. If we ever played one on one or even played against my dad, my dad playing two on one first me, my sister and us still losing to the heartbreak, Well, I'm sure you probably couldn't beat you guys, now for sure? Oh absolutely not. We pull a hamstring. What's your relationship with like your mom and your dad? Now, I talked to my dad and my mom often. My mom makes Sharon calls every day. She probably already called my phone this morn bank. We talked every day. We every night. We have a family Bible study that we go on together. So we're talking there and discussing God. But we're a pretty good relationship. Their family of faith, their family that pray together. They're rooted in God. They're so positive. You know, you could have a bad day, they'll spin it and they'll end up making you feel good. So I knew what we were getting in that, and I knew we're getting into a basketball player. I didn't not, however, know that the transformation of her game. I didn't know that would come as quickly, and it only came this quickly because of her and the work that she puts in behind closed doors. I think I've become mentally tough, tougher than I was freshman years. I mean, I still put a lot of pressure on myself, but I give myself more chances to mess up. I think that's the best thing that I can say for me, because once I get up here in my head and everything starts twisting and twirling up there, it's not good and it messes me up even more than I probably thought that I was doing. And so now I don't do that, and I give myself at least three shots to miss before I started thinking. So, I mean that's progress. When you put on a South Carolina uniform, describe that feeling to me. I mean, I think it's the best feeling. It's just because you know what type of environment we have here, the competitive environment, the family aspect of it all. So it's just you put this jersey on, It's like I'm playing for my family. Um, everybody here wants to win, and when we step on that court, everybody just wants to make each other better. And I think that's all you can ask for in a team, and then we have a great coaching staff. How much do you value coach stan What does she mean to you? She means everything. I mean, she's helped me get so far with my um college career and I'm just so thankful for her. And she's just a great example of what you want to be in life and things you want to do. So really blessed to have her. When it comes to basketball, I'll definitely say it's just about continued to be dominant and playing the way that I know how to play. But off the court, it's about getting what you want. Being a black woman in society is just it's just different. You're at a disadvantage. Things are gonna be hard, but that doesn't stop you. I mean even when you see coach Daley on Twitter when some things are happening. I mean, she's not afraid to use her voice. That's just a great example for us, because it's like, don't be afraid to say how you feel just because you know people might not agree with you. Let me ask you this, and this has nothing to do specifically with the basketball, but for me, and I don't know if anybody has ever told this but I truly admired that you changed the color of your hair often. Thank you, I do. I love that because I was I saw the picture I think Coach Staley had posted. I think she may have tagged East me in and it it was like, you know, changed the picture to this with your braids going back and then like teal blue color. Is it any particular, like you know meaning behind it or is this something that you just like to do. I got braids and started playing braids in high school, but it's always just like black or brown. But then in college when I started to braiding my hair, I was like, oh, what if I tried like this color? And then after I tried one color, I was like, okay, well let's try this one. And I'm just like running to even I changed my colors all the time. I'm running out of like combinations, so I'll go like a solid like all purple. But I think it's time as long as it's not like black or brown, I'm absolutely okay with it. Absolutely. What would you say, is like your favorite your favorite color or your favorite combination. I like, I really like purple and blue dot combo. The red was just nice. I had a nice pink one two, So I would say, like purple blue, red pink. I've never seen somebody have their great different colors you know some times, but I think it's fascinating. So definitely keep doing. You have my vote for sure. Thank you. I know you like doing TikTok videos. Would you say TikTok is your favorite social media platform? I guess I would say that because I'll post a TikTok any time, like it's fine. I mean, I'll dance. You might not like it, but you'll see it. What does coach say, think about you guys when y're all are dancing and stuff? Mm, she thinks my dancing has gotten a lot better that from the first time I said on campus. So we take that as a pro. She's been a couple of them who on the team. Would you not let date your child of the evossing because she ain't given h She is everything that you will want a player to be. Low maintenance, hardworking, the satiable desire to get better. She wants it, and she's the best teammate Basketball has an incredible way of just repaying her, like is repaying her right now for being that that good teammate and for putting a network like she, one of her teammates and herself. The experience. One of it is to win a national championship. For everybody, the major goal is the national championship, and I definitely think we all think about that and what's gonna happen. Aliah Boston and Don Staley South Carolina GAMECOCKX are playing in the Final Four this weekend. Wilson Jackson's article is titled she wanted a scholarship Now She's the face of women's college basketball. Will post a link on our show notes after a break the wild true story of one lucky gambler who turned twenty five dollars into more than two hundred and thirty seven thousand. With more states legalizing sports gambling, more people are finding different ways to bet on college basketball, and increasingly they're doing it online. According to reports, it was expected that billions, yes billions, will be bet on March Madness by the time it wraps up this weekend. Maybe some of those gamblers will do well and hit some of their bets, but I'm betting that none of them will do as well as a man who had a twenty five team parlay this season four hundreds of thousands of dollars. Kevin Lrose, four years old. I live in Cornora at New Jersey, and I own the Rose Construction. So where in Jersey is that eggit twelve? First of all, a round of applause for anyone who answers that question with a turnpike exit number. Kevin is exactly the kind of better that mobile sports books were trying to win over, and they did. Jeff Bucky, of course, se do you miss those days? Now? You know? I actually like this better. I don't care if they take the taxes. You've got a lot more opportunities using the sports app than the bookies will ever give you. Yeah, and you don't have to track down your bookie afterwards either. I never had to do that. Then guys are on the money with me. That's good to hear. Prior to this, Kevin, what's the most ever won? I went over a hundred thousand plus once a couple of times I hit fifty six thousand. You know this is what illegal? Yeah, yeah, we won't tell anybody. Yeah, well it is what it is. You know. I hit him again about a year later for a hundred, and he was not happy. They called me to parlay over here with the book he's that's right. We are in the presence of royalty. Kevin LeRose, the parlay King of New Jersey. And who better to describe what a parlay actually is. Well, when you put a lot of teams together, so when you put them together, you get a higher payout and a parla. You have to hit all of the legs of your parlay in order to win everyone. You can't miss one. So for a twenty five dollar bit, which one I put on that parley, I got the two seven thousand on that. You heard that right? Kevin LeRose bet twenty five dollars on a twenty five leg parlay, and he hit it and won two hundred and thirty seven thousand, five hundred and fifty three dollars and eleven cents. The eleven cents, you cannot forget. It was the largest ever payout from Caesar's on a parlay bet to that point. Now, before Kevin was the story of his moonshot bet. Let's take a moment to remember that gambling is addictive. And if you have a problem, or I think you might, please call one gambler to see counseling. And now here's the story of Kevin le Rose, the Parley King of New Jersey, and his wild legs. That day, I got hit early. One of my teams lost on the first game. Well, I liked my bets, so I reput the bet in immediately. That was at three o'clock. I started at for some reason, their website was shaky. You know, sometimes when everybody's betting, you have a problem. So I did it once. It kicked it out. I put the same teams down again, tried to do it again. It kicked me out the third time. I'm already at one minute to three these games. Some of them games were three o'clock games, and I'm telling you, at three o'clock you're out. I had to reload. It was three or two when that beat went in, which is unheard of. I've never got to bed in after three o'clock. So that was lucky right there. And then from that point on I never lost the game. It just kept on winning and winning. I looked at it around six o'clock, I had about twelve teams all wins. I was winning a lot of the other games. I went out and did a couple of errands from my wife, went to a sushi bar. My buddy yowns it. Had a couple of drinks with him. I had five games to go. I told him, this is really good. You know, I don't know, I said, I liked the teams I got left. I think I got this. So I went home. By the time I got home, two of them already won. So I was down to three. I told my wife the names to the team. She looks up. She goes one of them, just one. I said, well, down to two. When U c l A was I was doing a money on that they're up by twenty. So I was in sweating that it was wyoming. They were given eight. At halftime, they were up twelve points. Well, the other team, which was Utah Valley, came out and they went on a fourteen to two run. Next thing I know, I'm down a point or two. I ain't looking good. I'm six minutes and I'm still down. They're going back and forth. My team is struggling out of nowhere, you know how college basketball is. They come on and they go onto seventeen to two run. At two minutes, I was at eight, and then around seven I was at nine. I said, I got it, man, I said, I'm feeling good about this. I said nine, but you know you can't. You know, still a minute and a half left, and then nothing happens. I'm watching CBS Sports because the game wasn't on TV. I'm waiting for the updates, you know how they are slow, And all of a sudden, I see twelve seconds left. I'm up by twelve points. So whatever happened in between, I hit a three or whatever, I'm up by twelve or twelve. I looked at my wifes, I got this. I shut the app down. I went in and I saw the congratulations. You just want to thirty seven thousand, eight hundred and or on dollars? I was like, yeah, you can't beat that. I mean, no, you really can't beat that. I mean it's literally the most money that's ever paid out on a parlay in Caesar's Palace history. Previously, the biggest amount of money was about three thousand dollars, so you eclipse that many times over. So when you hit for that much money, you have twenty five games in one day, you won them all. Kevin, you won hundreds of thousands of dollars. What's your reaction to that? How do you celebrate something like that. Well, you know, for a few seconds there, I just was like, you know, I gave a couple of fist bumps and kissed my wife and I said, uh, I got a nice bottle of the time you want to have if the camera was on, I have an entire wine selection behind me. It's amazing, and it's even better than now that I won. Only thought. So I pulled out a really really good bottle of red wine, Brunelli Deep Maulticino. That's like one of the best wines you can get in Italian and uh, I popped that corp open and it was like a fourth thirty in the water. We were celebrating. So I bet you were so after you hit for this amount of money, you're celebrating, you're drinking your good wine. I would imagine you get to puff your chest out a little bit. You tell your friends and family who are the Who are the people that you called and told them? Yeah, I told a few people, you know, a couple of close friends with a couple of my family. You know, not too many people. I didn't go out of my way to to let everybody know anything that you're going to use the money for do you have an earmark for something other than wine? Well, I put something the bank, I paid some bills off and now trying to whack him again to be part from the honest with you, and it's only a matter of time. College basketball is your favorite thing to bet on. Why is that? Well, because they play hard, and they play all the way through, and you get the pros. They don't care if they win by ten or twenties, as long as they get to win. We're in college. You're ranked by how bad you beat a team. So if you're given a certain amount of points, you can almost count on that team pushing it right to the last moment because they want to get higher in the rankings. So you have less chances of a team saying okay, we got it and pulling all their starters out and putting the second streamers in. So you're mostly college in this parlay, and this like parlay, you have mostly money launch. You have a couple of NBA games in there. You had the grizz money line, you had the Clippers money line. But how did you select these games? Were there any dart throws where he said, Hey, I'm just gonna take a shot on this or were you methodical about everything? I'm methodical. I check them all out. I know what games, what what teams are playing here, you know, And I check out what their history is with this particular team. I I like to see how much they lose by to other teams that are as good or better on the road. How will they play on the at home? And I take a lot of into consideration. I study for hours. There had to be some close calls in there. You couldn't have won every game comfortably. What was the game that you were looking at and you thought, Man, I'm sweating this one a little bit. You want to know something. I put these bets in sometimes and I just walk away and I don't really I once in a while looped up the phone and I look and just I don't look at the scores. I look into the app the season is app to see how many games I won. I don't even like to see the scores most of the time, because, to be honest with you, there was one game I was down twenty points and my team came back from twenty down and with the last second bucket won the game. Now, if I had been watching that, I would have had no more nails on my hand. I don't you know, I don't need to go through that kind of stress. I don't blame you. I just want to see whether I want You know, well, you do. You definitely did win. But so the game that you end up winning the whole thing on you mentioned Wyoming over Utah Valley. I didn't know that Utah Valley exists. So explain to me how you end up on this game and you think to yourself, you know what, Wyoming's really got it over this school that John Gonzalez doesn't know exists. You know, I like Wyoming. Wyoming is an actually good basketball team. You know, I'm looking at Utah Valley and I looked at so many games they played and they didn't play very good teams, and uh, when they did, they got beat pretty good. But that doesn't mean anything because as a team goes on in the season, they start to fix problems that they had and they aren't out some wrinkles, and maybe they still lose, but they play better, you know. And that's what happened here. So Utah Valley came into Wyoming and they played a really good game. The beauty of it was is that they ultimately lost by the spread and more. And that's all I care about, you know. Kevin LeRose, the parlay King of Central New Jersey in the winner of the biggest parley in Caesar's history. Well played, Hey, John, I'm looking forward to having another conversation with you, with me winning another two hundred or four hundred thousand dollars hopefully, and if that happens, I'll be talking to you then. Good luck, my friend. You've gotta brother, have a good one to enjoy it, appreciate it, take care. Sports Illustrated Weekly is a production of Sports Illustrated and I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your favorite shows. And for more of Sports Illustrated, its best stories and podcasts, visit SI dot com. This episode of Sports Illustrated Weekly was produced by Cooper McKim, Jessica your Moski, and Isaac Lee, who was also our sound engineer. Our senior producer is Dan Bloom. Our executive producers are Scott Brody and me John Gonzaltz. Our theme song is by Nolan Either. Thanks for listening and if you've stuck around this long, we leave you with this. I'm watching this thing shoot blood out of its eyes. It's like unbelievable. This is like the coolest thing I've ever seen.