It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
—Theodore Roosevelt, “Citizenship in a Republic”
These immortal words have been cited countless times since they were first delivered by an esteemed member of the Class of 1880. Competitors all over the world see it as an embodiment of the trials and tribulations they face in their pursuit of ultimate success. Those of us at Indy Sportsbook are no exception. Since our opening column in January we have dedicated ourselves to boldly proclaiming who you should gamble on each week, personal embarrassment be damned. There is no time to account for critics when determining who will win their Premier League game this weekend (take Arsenal -130).
In all seriousness, we know we may not quite be who Roosevelt envisioned. On the contrary, we have highlighted again and again how much of what we say should be taken with a grain of salt. Yet while we may not be “men in the arena” ourselves, we have had a lot of fun gambling on those who are. Therefore, we have decided to open ourselves up to criticism by giving you a recap of our success rate over the course of the semester.
Our very first attempt at making picks occurred just before the perfect event to do so: Super Bowl LVII. In what would be a sign of things to come, our results were decidedly mixed. Though we missed on our prediction of the winner (we’re still bitter about that holding call), we saw great success in prop bets thanks to A.J. Brown (+191), Nick Sirriani (+110), and Jackson Mahomes (+165). Andy Reid (+700) sadly had no cheeseburger-related incidents during the broadcast, but one can dream.
After making it through Indy Sportsbook’s debut with our dignity intact, we decided to immediately throw it away by writing about which Champions League team you should gamble on during Valentine’s Day. In all fairness, we did pitch this as a way to buy a nicer gift for your significant other. If you did this with our Real Madrid (+195) prediction, this worked out very well. If you went for our other pick of PSG (+160), please pass on our apologies to your significant other.
After a brief break to debate the pros and cons of betting on your favorite team, we turned our attention to women’s sports. We were fairly successful considering the large gender data gap we discussed. West Adelaide won in a nervy 3-2 match, showing we may know more about 2nd division Australian soccer than we let on. We also nailed our UFC picks, as we thought Amanda Ribas (-120) would beat Viviane Araujo and we said upset victor that Alexa Grasso (+450) was an extremely bold pick for the less risk-averse. Our tennis pick did not fare as well, as Danielle Collins (+500) fell to eventual winner Martya Kostyuk in the semifinals of the ATX open.
In perhaps our most heartbreaking moment of the semester, our Iowa March Madness pick came ever so close to cashing. Caitlin Clark led the Hawkeyes (+5000) to the championship game with a historic run of performances before falling just short. If anyone followed our suggestion and put money on them, we hope you cashed out before the final game.
We all know March Madness is a wild time to sports bet, with a large number of games being played everyday and upsets galore contributing to the (in our opinion) best time of the year to sports gamble. This year was especially crazy, with FAU, San Diego, and Miami all making surprising appearances in the Final Four. When previewing this hectic tournament, we correctly picked Furman (+195) to beat Virginia in one of the many first round upsets, and also that Purdue (+1100, 5th favorite) and Baylor (+2500, 7th) would fall early and not live up to their seed. Along with providing individual teams to bet on, there was also a sample bracket in the article. It actually ended up being in the 92nd percentile of all brackets filled out, which is a major success. In the bracket, a couple of good picks like Arkansas to beat Kansas, Creighton and Texas to make the Elite Eight, and UConn to make the final four helped propel this bracket up the rankings.
The next challenge facing Indy Sportsbook was to give our take on the Sex Issue. While other authors at the Independent wrote about the nuances of sex, societal issues surrounding it, and personal experience, we decided to focus on spring football, women’s handball, and cycling. This turned out to be a disastrous venture, as the St. Louis Battlehawks (+110), Rapid Bucuresti (-120), and our Paris-Roubaix picks all lost. Our sole consolation was the Seattle Sea Dragons (+145), whose 24-21 victory prevented a completely winless article. There is a joke to be made here about this particular issue being our worst, but we are not going to be the ones to make it.
Thankfully, we only had to wait a week to rebound from these losses completely. In our first unthemed article, we somehow managed to hit on every single pick. This included a wrap-up of March Madness, where we chose San Diego State (-134) and UConn (-240) as winners of their Final Four games. We even went on to predict UConn would win the ensuing championship game. We also did not let the failures of the Sex Issue keep us away from cycling and gave an extended preview of the Tour of Flanders. We ultimately landed on Tadej Pogacar (350) as our pick, capping a remarkably successful article we will be lucky to emulate again.
Our final round of predictions set the tone for the summer with previews of the NBA and NHL playoffs. It is too soon to speak definitively about any of these bets, as we previewed title contenders to bet on, not individual matchups, but the majority of the teams we suggested are thriving in the playoffs. The Nuggets and Suns have advanced to the second round, while the Celtics, Hurricanes, and Oilers could join them with one more win. However, the Bucks are currently on the brink of a shocking early exit, as they are currently down 3-1 to the Miami Heat.
Though we will be stepping away from predictions for now, we will be back in full force in the fall. With it comes new sports to bet on, themes to struggle to fit, and opportunities to emulate the “man in the arena.”
Declan Buckley ’24 (declanbuckley@college.harvard.edu), McGavock Cooper ’24 (mcgavockcooper@college.harvard.edu), and Andrew Christie ’26 (andrewchristie@college.harvard.edu) would be shocked to find a reader invested in these picks enough to criticize them.