We just sort of assumed since Grant Hill's mom, Janet, is a former teacher who now is vice president of a business consulting firm and sits on the boards of three companies and the Fuqua School of Business at Duke, that she probably hasn't had much time to watch television game shows like Family Feud.
Turns out we were mistaken.
"It was our favorite show when Grant was a kid," Janet said of her son, the Suns' new forward. "When Grant was maybe from about 8 to 15 we would sit at dinner together every night and watch. We knew we could win Family Feud if we just had a big enough family.
"There are only three of us. Grant's an only child, I'm an only child and (Grant's father, former NFL star) Calvin is an only child. So we kept talking about various friends of ours we could expropriate and make them part of our family and win Family Feud.
"The family never got any bigger, but Janet and Grant still got their wish.
Grant is among six NBA players who will take on their moms in a special "NBA Players vs. NBA Mothers Week" on Family Feud. The prerecorded episodes run Nov. 12-16, airing locally at 1 and 1:30 p.m. on KTVK (Channel 3).
The teams competed for $65,000 in prize money for NBA Cares Community Partners, with the players representing KaBOOM! (a non-profit that builds playgrounds) and the moms representing Boys & Girls Clubs of America.
So, the moms must have cleaned up with Janet Hill on the team, being that she's a Wellesley College graduate and former classmate of Hillary Clinton's, right?
Wrong again.
"It was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be," she said.
We're not supposed to tell you how it came out, but Janet said Team Mom got off to a slow start. You won't see it on camera, but the moms went to the producers and demanded more "mom questions."
For those unfamiliar with the game, 100 people are surveyed and players must guess the most common responses to the survey questions.
One early question asked for another name for "toilet." The moms guessed lavatory.
Survey said!
Potty, can, head, throne - but not lavatory."It wasn't even up there," Janet said. "The mom's were saying, 'I am never going to say that I'm going to the throne.'
"And we were astounded at how self-congratulatory our sons were - high-fiving and slapping each other on the back just because they got a question correct.
"We need to go on Jeopardy or something."Just for fun, The Heat Index "surveyed" Janet on her son - and just a little bit about Hillary.
Q: What's a food Grant hated to eat as a kid?
A: "That's a hard question. I can hardly name anything. I guess brussels sprouts, but even that he likes now. The kid eats everything."
Q: What was Grant's favorite subject in school?
A: "I think it was history. His least favorite was mathematics. When he told me that he was going to major in history at Duke and maybe get out of Duke without taking any math, I was horrified because I was a mathematics major."
Q: If he hadn't pursued basketball, what might he have been?
A: "I think he might have pursued an advanced degree and become a college professor. I also think he might have been a businessman, which he's doing simultaneously with playing. Right now he's heavily involved in commercial real estate, and I think he would have done that, also."
Q: Hillary Clinton is a good friend because . . .
A: "Well, we were in the same class at Wellesley College, the Class of 1969, and we met in 1965 when we were freshmen. We were both involved in student government. So we've been friends for a very long time."Let me just say that neither one of us looked the way we look now. And neither one of us was blond. She looks great as a blonde today."
Q: Are you going to vote for her?
A: "You know, I'm not. I am backing (Barack) Obama. I believe he provides a better opportunity for the country going forward.
"And, frankly, with a country of 300 million people, I believe we can find someone not named Bush or Clinton who is very, very good. It's been a Bush or a Clinton for 20 years, and if she were elected for two terms then it would be 28 years."Were going to leave that one for a much more important survey in 2008.
Posted by BobYoung