The Fan Teaser – The Sports Fan Project

Fan Teaser: Week 189 Solution

June 7, 2026June 2, 2026DouglasTHillLeave a comment

**^{Our podcast, Conversations with Sports Fans, is about}**
**^{to celebrate its fourth birthday so we figured let’s go}**
**^{back to when Conversations was still a rumor.}**
**^{What’s happening here?}**

As noted in this week’s #FanTeaser clue, the Teaser is flashing back to the time of The Sports Fan Project‘s podcast – Conversations with Sports Fans – birth: June 2022.

On the Sunday leading into that initial Conversation, then-36-year-old Spaniard Rafael Nadal won his record 14th French Open men’s single’s title in straight sets over 23-year-old Norwegian Casper Ruud, 6-3, 6-3, 6-0.

Casper Ruud, left, and Rafael Nadal in 2022 — **^{Norway’s Casper Ruud, left, congratulates Spain’s Rafael Nadal following the pair’s 2022 French Open Men’s Singles Championship, won by Nadal 6-3, 6-3, 6-0. (Photo by Agence France-Presse)}**

Not only did Nadal continue to flex his dominance on the famed red clay of Roland-Garros, it also marked his 22nd all-time Grand Slam Championship which was then the record. Novak Djokovic equalled the mark early in 2023 at the Australian Open before breaking Nadal’s record in Paris that summer. Djokovic added the U.S. Open in September of 2023 and now owns the record with 24 Grand Slam Championships.

Nadal paid one more visit to Roland-Garros in 2024 (he had to withdraw in 2023 due to injury) and was defeated in the opening round by German Alexander Zverev.

With that Nadal left Paris with an all-time Roland-Garros record of 112-4.

Truly, mind-boggling dominance in the venue.

^{Here is match point from Rafael Nadal’s 14th and final French Open Championship from this week in 2022.}

Just to review, The Fan Teaser was the creation of former Ann Arbor News Sports Editor Geoff Larcom. Longtime friend and fellow Ann Arbor News alum, Pat Schutte, took it to heights previously unknown. We aim to keep it alive here at The Sports Fan Project. The cropped photo and the accompanying clue give you an idea as to who or what the image is of. We invite you to use the Comment option to take a crack at solving the Teaser and, if you’re so inclined, participate in some good-spirited banter with your fellow sports fans. The Fan Teaser will appear each Friday morning with the reveal coming to you Sunday.

The Fan Teaser – Week 189

June 5, 2026June 2, 2026DouglasTHill4 Comments

Fan Teaser – Week 188 Solution

May 31, 2026May 29, 2026DouglasTHill1 Comment

**^{The last time the New York Knickerbockers won an}**
**^{NBA Championship this fella was in the regular rotation.}**

Most modern-day NBA fans will know this week’s #FanTeaser solution – Phil Jackson – not from his playing days but from his stellar work on the sidelines coaching some of the game’s most successful franchises.

But before Jackson was the Zen Master helping guide the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers to a total of 11 NBA Championships, he was a 12-year player in the league, including the first 10 with the New York Knicks.

Phil Jackson during his playing days with the New York Knicks — **^{Before becoming known as an 11-time NBA Champion coach, Phil Jackson}**
**^{won two rings as member of the New York Knicks (1971 and 1973).}**
**^{(New York Daily News Photo)}**

It was there that he tasted his first professional success, winning an NBA title in 1973.

Jackson played his college ball at the University of North Dakota for a future Hall of Fame coach, Bill Fitch. He became a second-round pick of the Knicks in the 1967 NBA Draft. He immediately became a rotational player with the Knicks, averaging nearly 15 minutes a game as a rookie. And that, in a nutshell, was what Jackson was during the majority of his time in New York. Only once did he start more than 25 games in a season (1974-75) and he never averaged more than 30 minutes per game.

He did, however, nab a ring with the 1973 Knicks’ team when he chipped in an average of eight points per game over 17 minutes per contest during the Knicks’ 4-1 Finals victory over the Los Angeles Lakers. (New York also won it all in 1970, but Jackson missed the season while recovering from spinal fusion surgery.)

**^{Not a shabby top 12 for the 1972-73 Knicks.}**

As a coach, Jackson won three consecutive NBA titles three times! The 1991-93 Bulls, the 1996-98 Bulls, and the 2000-02 Lakers. He added a back-to-back with the Lakers in 2009 and 2010. Oh yeah, he also took two other Lakers’ teams to the Finals but wound up falling short (2004 and 2008).

One final amazing statistics. At the moment, there have been 80 NBA Championships. If you include Jackson’s two as a player (he was on that Knicks roster while recovering from surgery) that means he’s won 16.25% of those!

^{This video examines Jackson’s playing career.}

The Fan Teaser – Week 188

May 29, 2026June 2, 2026DouglasTHill4 Comments

Fan Teaser: Week 187 Solution

May 24, 2026May 20, 2026DouglasTHill2 Comments

**^{Don’t blink or you might miss this week’s #FanTeaser.}**

In the approximate time it takes many humans to involuntarily blink their eyes (0.04 seconds), Al Unser Jr. defeated Scott Goodyear in 1992 for the closest finish ever of the Indianapolis 500.

The official finish times were separated by 43-thousandths of a second. That’s 0.043 seconds!

Finish of the 1992 Indy 500. — **^{Al Unser Jr. just edges Scott Goodyear at the finish line of the 1992 Indianapolis 500. (Photo by Mike Fender/Indianapolis Star).}**

The image captured by Indianapolis Star photographer Mike Fender in this week’s #FanTeaser illustrates – quite nicely we believe – just how close a finish it was. Notice how Unser’s car is not yet fully across the famed yard of bricks finish line as the nose of Goodyear’s is about to touch.

Unser’s victory was historic for another reason.

He put the Unser family’s name on the famed Borg-Warner Trophy again as the first – and still only – multi-generational family winner of the Indy 500 in the race’s storied history. Little Al’s father, Al Sr., won the race on four occasions (1970, 1971, 1978, and 1987). Senior’s older brother, Bobby Unser, also won the annual Memorial Day race three times (1968, 1975, and 1981). Little Al won the race again in 1994.

Tragedy has also touched the Unser family at the famed race course. Bobby and Senior’s older brother, Jerry Unser Jr., finished 31st in 1958 and, then, while practicing for the 1959 race, spun coming out of Turn 4 and hit the wall, suffering burns over 35% of his body and broken neck. Though conscious during his rescue, he later slipped into a coma and died two weeks later. Jerry’s accident and subsequent death, led to a requirement for all drivers to wear fire-resistant suits.

^{The final two laps of the 1992 Indianapolis 500 which is still the closest finish in the race’s 109-year history.}

The Fan Teaser – Week 187

May 22, 2026May 27, 2026DouglasTHill2 Comments

Fan Teaser: Week 186 Solution

May 17, 2026May 13, 2026DouglasTHillLeave a comment

**^{Who’s making kissy face with the Wanamaker Trophy?}**

This week’s stop on the PGA Tour takes golfers to the second major champions of 2026 – the PGA Championship – at suburban Philadelphia’s Aronimink Golf Club.

The tournament was last contested on this Donald Ross-designed course in 1962. Yep, 64 years ago some of the world’s best descended upon this course to battle for the Wanamaker Trophy. The winner that day was a then 26-year-old fella from South Africa named Gary Player who’s seen in this week’s Fan Teaser playing kissy face with his well-earned trophy.

Player finished a shot ahead of Bob Goalby three shots clear of George Bayer and Jack Nicklaus.

The PGA Championship was the third of Player’s nine major’s won during his storied career. Three years later he achieved the Career Grand Slam when he won the U.S. Open at Bellerive Country Club in suburban St. Louis, MO. He won one more PGA Championship 10 years later at Oakland Hills Country Club in suburban Detroit.

^{The last time the PGA Championship was played at Aronimink Golf Club in Newtown Square, PA, Gary Player was the winner. Here he makes kissy face with the Wanamaker Trophy as PGA President Lou Strong (left) looks on. (Photo from the Getty Images Bettman Collection)}

The Fan Teaser – Week 186

May 15, 2026May 15, 2026DouglasTHillLeave a comment

Fan Teaser: Week 185 Solution

May 10, 2026May 8, 2026DouglasTHillLeave a comment

**^{We’re no longer on track for a repeat of this masterpiece but the image was too good not to use!}**

In 2019 the Toronto Raptors and Philadelphia 76ers met in an Eastern Conference Semifinal and it went the distance to a deciding seventh game in Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena.

And, befitting a seventh game, it went down to the wire.

With two minutes remaining, the game was tied at 85. The Raptors scored four straight points before Philly countered with three free throws of its own to make it 89-88 with 12 seconds left.

Kawhi Leonard made just one of two free throws with 10 seconds left before 76er Jimmy Butler’s jumper knotted the game at 90 with four seconds left.

The final moments of the 2019 NBA Eastern Conference Finals. — ^{The final moments of the 2019 NBA Eastern Conference Semifinals are captured in Toronto. Note the 0.0 remaining on the clock. The emotion visible on all the faces each tell a story do they not? With his right foot on the ‘R’ is Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid. Squatting next to Embiid is the shot’s shooter, Kawhi Leonard. Raptors Fred VanVleet (23) seems to be willing the ball into the basket as be steps off the bench. Philly’s Ben Simmons (25) appears resigned to fact that his season is over. 76er Jimmy Butler (only his head visible) can only watch. (Photo by Mark Blinch/NBA Entertainment via Getty Images)}

With that as the backdrop, Leonard played the role of hero, nailing a fadeaway baseline jumper as the clock expired to not only give the Raptors the 92-90 victory (they went onto win the franchise’s only NBA Title), but also yielded this week’s epic #FanTeaser image.

Shot by NBA Entertainment’s Mark Blinch, it was described by The Guardian as a “Flemish masterpiece” (whatever that might mean) thanks to all of motion, emotion, and lighting found in the shot.

It went on to win a World Press Photo Sports Singles 2020 Award and, I must say, it seems for good reason.