Posted on: Wednesday, November 10, 2004

Try-athlon finally turns to victory after eight years

Advertiser Staff

If you don't succeed, try and try again. Honolulu's Robin Zukeran has done that for about eight years in the Pigskin Picks contest.

Zukeran was understandably ecstatic when the Perry and Price radio show called Monday morning to tell him that he had finally won.

"I wanted to scream, but I couldn't because my son (Parker) is 15 months old," Zukeran said. "I didn't want to wake him up. I was really happy and surprised that I won."

Zukeran, 30, who works in the marketing department for the Maui Divers Jewelry Design Center, was the only entrant with 14 out of 15 correct picks on college and NFL games. His only miss was picking the Eagles to beat the Steelers. Zukeran said his previous best was 12 of 15.

As the Pigskin Picks winner, Zukeran wins a trip for two to Las Vegas from Worry-Free Vacations and Non-Stop Travel and the Golden Nugget Hotel, and $500 from The Advertiser.

He also is entered to win a year-end prize of free use of a Hyundai Tucson for a year, courtesy of Tony Hyundai.

Zukeran, who plans to take his wife, Kristy, on the Las Vegas trip, said he gets many of his ballots from friends and family. He entered 10 ballots last week, which was a dramatic increase from last year, when he entered two or three ballots a week.

"I was reading a couple of weeks ago, the guy who won (Jon Ikenaga of 'Ewa Beach) turned in like (60 to) 70 ballots," Zukeran said. "So I was like, I've got to get on the ball."

Zukeran said the strongest part of his picking strategy is luck, but he does analyze information from the daily sports pages. "I kind of think about it," Zukeran said. "I read the injury reports."

Zukeran said he wanted to thank his friends and family for giving him extra ballots.

"Every week, I would ask them (for ballots), and they would say, 'yeah, yeah, go ahead and good luck,' " Zukeran said. "I would just turn it in thinking I would never win, but at least I could try."