-Won over $400 in less than an hour an a half at the Barbary Coast Casino in Las Vegas at the craps table. "It was a tremendous experience and a rush," commented McCracken. "I was playing next to this New Jersey guy that looked & sounded like Daniel LaRusso from "The Karate Kid." He had a wife or girlfriend or what not. He started playing next to me and was on a little winning streak. His wife wanted to go, but he didn't want to because he was winning. She left him and went to sit down and mope. But he continued playing with me, was playing all the same number with me, and we were winning. We were nailing our points, hitting the "hard 8's" and just doing an unreal job. The field was really paying off. He cashed out about $300 up and I cashed out about $400 up. I bet you his wife wasn't too mad at him when he came back from the cashier's booth!"
-Won $100 his first week in Frontier Hall his freshman year at the University of Minnesota playing "Bill Walsh College Football" on Sega Genesis. "Bottom line was I was a very sick & skilled player at that game in high school," said Scoops. "Nobody ever beat me, and some punk was running his gums on how good he was at this game the first week in the dorms. I believed in my abilities and played him for $100. Lots of people came to watch, and I knew nobody in the room. I took "Colorado '90," he was "Boston College '84." I was simply breaking the triple option with Darian Hagan & Eric Bienemy all over his defense and was running up and down the field. He then started trying to play goal line defense, and that's the worst you can do to the option because once you break the preimeter, the option then gets 20-30 yard gains. I was up 21 points before he knew what was up. Then he started crowding the line and I started running Charles Johnson on some fly patterns and it was all over. I don't even think we finished the game, I was up by 3-4 touchdowns all game and had a good 60 points when the 4th quarter began before he shut the game off, gave me his money, and I left the dorm room with some good Rocky Rococo's pizza money."
-won another $30 off of another kid in the dorms playing "College Football '97" on Sega. "This kid & I played a game earlier," said Scoops. "He was Tennessee with Peyton Manning and stuff and I was screwing around and was just Georgia, not really a good team that year in the game. He ended up actually beating me like by 4 points and was smack talking to everyone in the dorms. I then said "well, let's play for some money and I'll actually try," and we set a time for everyone to watch the game later that night. I switched to my money team, Florida, and with him being Tennessee again, the game didn't even go into the 2nd quarter because I was up 35-0 before the 1st quarter ended. He shut off the game, left me his money, and walked out. Yet another good job done by Scoops!"
-hit .630 his sophomore season in high school baseball. "I was just your typical fat kid out for a tan that summer. But a funny thing happened: I started getting stronger & bigger than all of the other kids. I completely had a long, loopy swing, and either pulled the ball or hit it the other way if I was behind on it. Well, I pissed off all the coaches by hitting exactly how they taught me not to hit but I was the best hitter on the team."
-drove to Toledo, OH to watch a college football game. "The summer of 2001, I was just itching to watch some college football and I couldn't wait any longer, so me & a buddy packed the SUV filled with beer & grilling supplies and drove 10 hours to Toledo to watch the season opener for Minnesota. Well, some RB named Chester Taylor ran for like 190 yards in the 1st half and Toledo wacked the Gophers 38-7. We drank our beer, cooked our food, and then promptly drove 10 hours back home. Needless to say, I've never been back to T-town."
