Hope Mills, NC, February 18, 2007 – Hope Mills resident Michelle Kelley won a $500 Visa gift card today in Members Credit Union’s Football Pick’em game. The contest challenges competitors to correctly project the winners of professional football games.
“This is just one of the many ways we try to have fun with our membership,” comments Matt Davis, Director of Public Relations. “Luck usually goes a long way in determining weekly winners, but Michelle was excellent week in and week out – that’s skill!”
Correctly picking 64.8% of all regular season and playoff games, Kelley beat over 600 competitors on her way to victory. Her secret? Good, old-fashioned homework.
“I spent a lot of time researching,” Kelley recalls. “I would check sports web sites for predictions – especially Jay Novacek’s picks on msnbc.com.”
It also helped that she’s a huge football fan.
“My dad basically raised me as a boy,” Kelley jokes. “I’ve watched football for as far back as I can remember.”
Being raised “as a boy” likely did not help. Kelley becomes the second female in the three years of Members Credit Union Football Pick’em to win the grand prize – proving yet again that men’s monopoly over gridiron knowledge is more mythical than fact.
“Our top employee competitor [teller Regina Hartley] is a female, the top player overall is a female,” Davis laughs. “It’s high time I look to my wife for football advice – she would have at least talked me out of picking the Giants to win 15 times!”
Members Credit Union plans to continue the internet-based game next season.