Ray Duran Wins K99.3 Football Pick’Em Contest

Ray Duran (center) is the winner of the K99.3 Football Pick'Em Contest, surrounded by Anita Goodan, Nathan Welter, Jerry Curtis, and Tom Berg.

Knox local Ray Duran went home yesterday afternoon with a brand new 42” flat screen TV from Sears in Knox after he blew away the competition in the K99.3 Football Pick’Em contest! Every contestant who entered had to choose who would win all of the games that week, and Duran picked more correct teams than any other contestant.

Duran, who was born in San Diego but moved to Knox when he was around nine years old, said this was the first time he has participated in the Football Pick’Em contest.

“I was pretty pumped up, it’s always cool to win a TV, and I just felt confident. It’s gonna go in the bedroom, we have a 46-inch in the living room, but next year for football season it will be out so we can watch two games at once,” said Duran.

Duran said he stayed loyal to his favorite team but asked his wife for help when he felt it was a toss-up. Fortunately, this strategy worked out!

“I picked the 49ers the whole year – you can’t go wrong – and for the tough games of the worse teams against the worse teams I asked my wife, who’s not very football-literate, but whatever she said first I went with,” Duran said.

Duran said he realized he might win it after the first week when he kicked off to a good start, and around the 13th or 14th week he said he began to get pretty excited as he was up by around a half-dozen points.

Duran explained he’s been growing his beard out because of Colin Kaepernick, the quarterback for the 49ers. He said after going out for his wife’s birthday and shaving for the night, Kaepernick took over for Alex Smith against the Rams and did extremely well – as a result, Duran said he hasn’t shaved since for superstition and his team has been doing spectacular. He said he made a deal with his wife that if the team loses, he’ll shave it off – but he’s hoping that’s not the case until after the Super Bowl.