Do you think it’ll work? For this Super Bowl edition of Work of Art, I asked a number of athletes, employees of the City Recreation Center — people who follow football — to predict the winner and the final score of Sunday’s game.

Surprisingly, only West Las Vegas High School junior Brandon Gallegos predicted anything close to a slaughter. Brandon picks the Seattle Seahawks to beat the Denver Broncos 42-24. And why does he choose the Seahawks? “I don’t like Denver.” That’s reason enough.

Those who predicted a final score were extremely conservative, for the most part, choosing either the Broncos or the Seahawks winning by a touchdown or even a field goal. Except for Brandon, the participants in this informal poll kept the scores in the teens, twenties and low thirties.

The experiment mentioned above will be simply to tally all the predicted scores and come up with an average. We’ll see how close our local experts come to guessing the winner of Super Bowl XLVIII final score. With experts like these, we don’t need odds makers from the bigger Las Vegas.

Nicolas Silva, a lifeguard at the rec center, is a fan of the Philadelphia Eagles. He picks Seattle to win because “They’re a better all-around team.”

Their quarterback holds a good pocket. Nicolas’ prediction: Seattle 27-20.

Miguel Martinez, a maintenance technician at the center, roots for the Pittsburgh Steelers, but since they didn’t qualify this year, he’s going for “Denver in a close game. This is Denver’s year.”

Carlos Romero, another fitness tech, is a Kansas City Chiefs fan. He’s picking Seattle, 27-21, and figures “Payton Manning, the Broncos’ quarterback, won’t be a factor.”

Ricky Garduño, a 2011 West Las Vegas High School baseball player and cross-country runner, already has his favorite team, the Broncos, in the Super Bowl, and he predicts a 23-17 victory for Denver. Why? Because “Denver knows how to work as a team. And Manning is the main team player.”

Pedro Tafoya, a sophomore at Luna Community College and a former gridder for the Dons, likes the Broncos, and accordingly, picks them to beat the Seahawks 26-17.

Brandon Lucero, a work-study student at the recreation center, is a senior at Robertson High School. His favorite team is the Dallas Cowboys. He foresees a low-scoring game “between Denver, the No. 1 offense and Seattle, the No. 1 defense.” Brandon doesn’t have a predicted winner, saying only, “It’ll be a close game, not high-scoring.”

Two cousins, Tyler Rudolph and Cheyenne Rudolph, who describe themselves and each other as “two peas in a pod,” are nursing students at Luna, working toward their RN certification.

Tyler as yet doesn’t have a favorite team but expects Seattle to take it, 27-17. “They have better players,” Tyler said. And her prima, Cheyenne, says “consistency” is what got the Seahawks into the big game, which she says they’ll win 30-22 over Denver.

Albert Tafoya, the assistant division manager at the rec center, is a fan of the Miami Dolphins. “Did you know the Dolphins beat every team that made it to the AFC playoffs?” he asked. Tafoya explains Denver was not one of Miami’s victims, and that was only because the teams didn’t play against each other.

Tafoya picks Denver by four, 28-24. “The difference is offense,” he said, “and if Seattle can’t stop Manning, it’s over for them.”

The local prognosticators come up with an average tally of 27.6 points for the Seahawks and 22.6 for the Broncos. By Sunday we’ll all know how accurate these people are.

Did anyone notice that this column — the 10th Super Bowl installment, going back to 2004, doesn’t contain a single insult directed at the Dallas Cowboys, nor a single compliment for the Oakland Raiders?

These rapidly advancing years of mine must be causing some mellowing.

• • •

Could last week’s Christmas carol quiz have been too easy for our local literati? Almost all received 100 percent.

The column listed some 20 carols and hymns cloaked in far-too-eloquent terminology. It asked readers to identify the selections. I got the idea after I outed my wife, Bonnie, announcing to all, that she listens to Christmas music year-round.

The list of hymns and carols included, for example, “Bleached Yule” which becomes “White Christmas”; “Arrival Time 2400 Hours — Weather Cloudless” represents “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear.”

Other alternate titles include “Bantam Male Percussionist,” for “Little Drummer Boy,” and “Delight for this Planet,” representing “Joy to the World.”

Those who submitted responses were Jackie Gallegos, Bonnie Bolton, John and Margaret Geffroy and Jean Hill and Tom Ward.

Jackie Gallegos might have struggled with “Proceed and Enlighten on the Pinnacle,” which she identified either as “The First Noel” or “Oh Christmas Tree.” The correct answer is “Go Tell it on the Mountain.” But Jackie still scored a 95.

Hill and Ward say they became interested in this quiz because Jean’s daughter, Mikaele, also listens to Christmas music irrespective of the season.

An unexpected submission came from John Geffroy, who asks if anyone in Christendom can divine what he refers when he submits “Observed: Genetrix Osculating Hibernal Gift-Giver.”

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