My Gram is AWESOME!

Janet "Gram" Stephenson, 92, beats the boys in NFL football pool

Janet "Gram" Stephenson knows how to pick ’em. Don’t bet against the 92-year-old on a football game, because odds are, she’ll beat you.

Janet, a Kansas City, Mo., resident, has been participating in sports pools for about 25 years. She has won pots in Montana, at a local high school in Missouri, two different hotel pots and in an annual bowl pool.

Her son, Tom Stephenson, an M Streets resident, enters her in Dallas contests, too. This season, Janet beat out 32 men in the annual contest at Back Country Bar-B-Q on Greenville Avenue. The only female who entered, Janet picked every NFL regular-season game against the line.

Even though she stamps all of her pool sheets with a shamrock, Janet said it’s not luck that’s helping her win.

“I hardly ever turn off ESPN; I read the lines, see who’s hurt,” she said.

By choosing 150 games correctly, Janet also posted a higher percentage than local sports journalists who regularly pick against the line.

“She quantifies everything,” Tom said. She’s an expert. I’d put her up against Dale Hansen or any of them and she’ll crush ’em.”

Tom, who moved to Dallas from Kansas City in the early 1970s, said the whole family has always been sports oriented.

“One of the things that helped keep everybody together was the love of sports,” Tom said, who still has siblings in Missouri.

Janet said she caught the football bug early on from her father, who was an avid sports fan.

“When football is over, I practically collapse,” she said. “I hate it. I just get bored.”

A few teams she can never bet against are the Kansas City Chiefs, Notre Dame and the University of Missouri, where Tom played football.

“She will hardly answer the phone during any televised game,” Tom said of his mom. “She looks like a bookie sometimes because she has so many pots going. It’s not unusual for her to have five or six various interests going out there [at once]. She’ll sit there and scream at the TVs and referees.”

Janet is currently in second place at a pool at another local establishment, too — Stan’s Blue Note on Greenville Avenue.

On Jan. 31, Back Country Bar-B-Q honored Janet’s accomplishment by having her name engraved on a plaque, which will hang on the wall of the restaurant with names of previous winners. The coolest thing for Tom is that his mom “called it” last year when she was in town visiting.

“We went to the barbecue joint and I showed her the plaque,” he said. “[She said], ‘Next year, my name is gonna be on top of that.”

Janet didn’t know she would be getting the $600 pot money, too.

“I was so surprised,” she said.

It’s been a good year for Janet, who said she is lucky to have great kids and great health. And her mind, she said, still seems to be just fine.

“It’s a great age,” Janet said, who will turn 93 in April. “I have a great life … and I have from the beginning. I thank my dad for it … [but] in my second life, I’m coming back as a linebacker.”

Janet wanted to mention one more thing: Tom, who also entered in this season’s Back Country pool, came in dead last.

GRAM’S SUPER BOWL PICK

Janet's Super Bowl pick for this year: “That’s easy. Green Bay. I used to hate them and now I love them,” she said. Gram thinks the Packers will win by about three points. “I think it will be close.”