Getting 97 percent to agree ain't easy
October, 6, 2009
10/06/09
4:06
PM ET
By Tim Graham | ESPN.com
BUFFALO -- Fans are so full of angst here. They're practically begging Buffalo Bills owner Ralph Wilson to come to his senses and fire head coach Dick Jauron, the most objectionable figure in local sports.
In this week's ESPN.com SportsNation coaches approval ratings, Jauron is down to three percent with an absurd number of votes being cast. Bills fans, motivated by disgust, have vented and voted more than 3,200 times as of this posting.
Not even the zealots who follow the Dallas Cowboys have been so compelled to voice their displeasure. Wade Phillips was 31st on the list at 14 percent with fewer than 750 votes submitted. Those would be halcyon numbers for Jauron.
Want to know how difficult it is to get 97 percent of the public to agree on anything?
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| AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee | |
| More people believe in aliens than believe Dick Jauron is doing a good job coaching the Bills. |
Not even the zealots who follow the Dallas Cowboys have been so compelled to voice their displeasure. Wade Phillips was 31st on the list at 14 percent with fewer than 750 votes submitted. Those would be halcyon numbers for Jauron.
Want to know how difficult it is to get 97 percent of the public to agree on anything?
- A 1999 Gallup poll found 18 percent of Americans believed the sun revolves around the earth, and 24 percent couldn't identify the country we gained our independence from.
- Four percent didn't believe we landed on the moon.
- In a different 1999 Gallup poll, two percent of Americans said pro wrestling matches are never fixed.
- Five years after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, a Newsweek poll found 41 percent of Americans still believed Saddam Hussein was directly involved.
- A CNN poll from 1997 showed 37 percent of Americans were convinced extraterrestrials have contacted our government and nine percent thought aliens traveled alongside the Hale-Bopp comet.
- A Rasmussen Reports telephone survey from last month found 42 percent of Americans believed people randomly selected from a phone book would do a better job than the current group in congress.
- A 2005 Gallup poll on the paranormal found 25 percent believed the position of the stars and planets directly influence our lives. Twenty-one percent believed in witches.
- Public Policy Polling found in August that 6 percent of Americans don't consider Hawaii a part of the United States, while four percent weren't sure.



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