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Maryland Basketball Players Can’t Name The Vice President

Who is the guy getting off the fancy plane? Don't ask basketball players at the University of Maryland. They don't know, either. State Department photo by William Ng/Public Domain
Who is the guy getting off the fancy plane? Don't ask basketball players at the University of Maryland. They don't know, either. State Department photo by William Ng/Public Domain

In what is almost certainly a sad day for higher education, six basketball players at the University of Maryland did not know the name of the Vice President.

Get these guys to American Government 101, stat! Six players from the Maryland basketball team could not name the Vice President of the United States without a hint.

The question, for the record, was posed to six players, per Lost Lettermen. A YouTube video of the interview was taken down.

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Bagel-for-6. Ouch.

So tell us again, Mr. NCAA president Mark Emmert, about these student-athletes you oversee. Here’s the thing. It’s not as if this was some agricultural college in the middle of a potato field in Idaho. It’s the University of Maryland, as in less than 12 freaking miles from the U.S. Capitol building in Washington.

One would think they would hear these names accidentally.

Of course, the Office of the Vice President has been derided in the past for its lack of importance.

John Nance Garner said when learning that President Franklin D. Roosevelt would seek a third term in office in 1940 that the vice presidency was “not worth a bucket of warm spit.” (Note: Some historians believe the bodily fluid referred to in the quote was actually urine, but not by that name).

Who was John Nance Garner, you might ask? He was the Vice President of the United States … at the time he uttered the famous quote.

He also said being talked into running for vice president was “the worst damn fool mistake I ever made.”

Or as the late, great Johnny Carson once said:

"“Democracy means that anyone can grow up to be president and anyone who doesn’t grow up can be vice president.”"

Still, one would think college kids—particularly those located right in the Beltway—would know who the Veep is.

For the record, it’s Joe Biden.

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I think.