BWF QUIZ: How Well Do You Know Ben Johnson (from Ted Kaczynski)?

 We all know and love Ben Johnson, and a big part of that love is about playfully ignoring the clear and obvious signs that it's being spent on a psycho who would gladly strangle the light from Matt Lafleur's eyes if it could be done without accruing penalty yardage. Being a fan of Ben is a lot like being a single cat owner - you can't help but dote on a creature whose response is silently waiting for your death. Naysayers are already pointing out that this isn't a perfect analogy - after all, your cat's response to your death is a muted blink before blissfully consuming your corpse. Ben Johnson is different in that he doesn't blink.

But how well do you know Ben Johnson the brilliant, infamous psycho from just your normal brilliant, infamous psycho? Find out if you can beat our in-house ringer Coach Bob in this exclusive* BWF Quiz:

Ben Johnson, Or the Unabomber?

(These are different people)

*(I think this is exclusive. I mean I haven't done an exhaustive search here but I think the list of folks who would print this story is basically just us and Jason Lieser, except where ours is a delight, Lieser's version would have all the fun and whimsy of a toddler autopsy)

 

1. This famous Chicago figure used his widely-recognized mathematical gifts to earn multiple degrees, including a degree in Mathematics, before working at a college in the Boston area.

Answer: c) Both. Ted Kaczynski was born and raised in Chicago. He skipped multiple grades and was accepted into Harvard at age 15, where he got a bachelor’s in Mathematics before earning a master’s and PhD. Ben Johnson, also regarded by his teachers and peers as being gifted in math, earned degrees in both Computer Science and Mathematics before taking a job at Boston College. I agree it's a wild number of commonalities, but it's important to remember that Ted Kaczynski confessed to 16 bombings. Ben Johnson hasn't confessed to any.

2. While attending college, this person was recognized for their gifts not only in Mathematics and attention to detail, but also in leadership, being awarded a position as a graduate assistant.

Answer: c) Both. After graduating from Harvard, Ted Kaczynski became a graduate assistant in Math. Ben Johnson graduated with a math degree from Boston College, though his graduate assistant position was for the football program. Totally different. It's honestly not weird at all.

3. As a child in kindergarten, this person would spend his time every day after school filling up a new notebook by writing down every number between 1 and 10,000 in sequential order.

Answer: a) Ben Johnson. Per Courtney Cronin's ESPN profile "Why Bears Coach Ben Johnson Seemed Destined for this Moment: "Math came easy and piqued Johnson's interest from a young age. When he was in kindergarten, his parents bought him a spiral notebook to allow his mind and organizational skills to go to work. Each day after school, the 6-year-old wrote out numbers from 1 to 10,000 -- for fun. When one page filled up, he'd be on to the next, until the notebook was filled with every number in sequential order in neat columns."

4. This man was known to stay up all night alone drawing diagrams for his plan of attack.

Answer: c) Both. Per Kaczynski's own autobiography: "I spent most of my time studying, and almost no time on recreation. I forced myself to keep studying long after I should have gone to sleep. I considered myself negligent if I went to bed before 2 A.M., and I often stayed up until 3."
Per Cronin's article on Ben Johnson: "'He could draw some great pictures,' Sherman said. 'One thing that I can say about him, the guy has unbelievable endurance. That's what he impressed on me the most was his ability to work and just grind it, grind it, grind it. There were times that I might've gone home at 2 o'clock in the morning, roll around, come on back in about 5:30 and he's still working on the pictures. He knows they have to be exactly right, so he was somebody that when he got the book to do the pictures, I knew it was going to get done and be on my desk when I get in in the morning.'"

5. This person would read to his followers passages from the Green Beret book “Objective Secure” on warrior mindset.

Answer: a) Ben Johnson. Before practice on Aug. 20, Johnson spent nine minutes reading to over 150 players, coaches, and staff from Nick Lavery's Objective Secure to instill a warrior mindset.
Ted Kaczynski, meanwhile, was a staunch critic of the military industrial complex, seeing the military as a tool that propped up a system that made people's lives miserable. You could be forgiven for thinking that Ben Johnson venerating the Green Berets actually makes him more bloodthirsty of the two. The other guy being the one who carried out 16 bombings.

6. Reporters note that this person’s home was filled with thousands of hand-written notes.

Answer: b) Ted Kaczynski. Per the FBI: "That was enough to get a search warrant for the rustic cabin in Montana where Kaczynski lived. Among the evidence found in the cabin were thousands of pages of Kaczynski’s handwritten notes, including confessions to all 16 bombings."
There have been no reports of Ben's homes having such extravagent leavings. Even those notebooks are long gone. He self-scouts. Never give any tells. Leave no traces. Ted slipped up by keeping incriminating evidence. Ben never, ever will.

7. After becoming famous, this person was found to have diagrams of their plans of attack drawn out going back as early as middle school in crayon.

Answer: a) Ben Johnson. Cronin: ""Around middle school, Ben began demonstrating his own creativity. He'd diagram formations, draw up ways he'd envision the offense scoring and take his ideas to his father for feedback."

Hey, you know how there's that episode of Always Sunny in Philadelphia where Dennis goes to a therapist and it's revealed that he's been taking copious psychological profile notes since grade school? And that chilling detail is the nail in the coffin for the therapist to realize she's dealing with an actual psychopath? Hey, unrelated, but did you know if you were to, hypothetically, try to photoshop Ben Johnson's face into the Unabomber police sketch using paint.net's "Ink Sketch" effect, his own official team photo ends up coming out looking exactly like Dennis Reynolds? Probably nothing, I forget why I brought it up honestly.

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“You can just feel when he’s teaching something, it bothers him to the core if it’s off by a yard,” Kmet said. “I don’t know if it’s OCD or something, but there’s something about it that really bothers him, and he’ll let you know that. —Cole Kmet

""He can get mad and then start smiling at the same time. It's kind of creepy. You know he's serious, but at the same time, you don't know when he's joking, so you just gotta take everything he says serious." —DJ Moore