Like millions of other viewers, ESPN Radio’s Mike Golic Jr. and ESPN’s Jen Lada are transfixed by the 2017 Scripps National Spelling Bee, which concludes with the Finals from National Harbor, Md., airing today and tonight on ESPN platforms.
They are the hosts of Lunchtime with the Spelling Bee, the play-along, multiple-choice game experience airing from the ESPN Cafe in Bristol, Conn. Viewers can play along on the ESPN App from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. ET today.
Front Row visited with Golic and Lada and asked them:
Is there a word that trips you up every time you try to spell it?
Golic Jr.: “Karaoke.” It’s something that I do a lot in my life. I consider myself somewhat of an amateur karaoke star, but I always have to think long and hard about how to spell it, and usually it’s the “a-o” and then the “k-e” at the end, just every part of that word is designed to throw me off.
Lada: The word that tripped me up as a kid when I was in the Bee was “stethoscope,” and it wasn’t the beginning of the word “steth,” it wasn’t the end of the word “scope,” it was choosing between the “o” or the “a” in the middle of the word. Stethoscope obviously has the “o,” but hilariously we’ve seen a ton of words over the past few hours that pose that exact same conflict where you just don’t know which one to go with. So it’s funny how that keeps coming back, and I told Golic, Jr. “go with the o, just go with the o” just out of habit now because I don’t want to be burned again by it.
Claire Duckworth contributed to this post.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Before traveling to Maryland, SportsCenter anchor and 2017 Scripps National Spelling Bee host Kevin Negandhi quizzed a few of his Bristol colleagues about spelling sports names.
