Problem: Odom was born in South Jamaica, Queens, New York City, to Joe Odom and Cathy Mercer. His father was a heroin addict, and Odom's mother died of colon cancer when he was twelve years old. At her deathbed, Odom's mom told him: "Be nice to everybody". Afterwards, he was raised by his maternal grandmother, Mildred Mercer.

Odom contemplated entering the NBA directly out of high school, and consulted with Bryant, who had made the jump a year earlier. He decided he was not ready, and decided to attend the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. However, after a Sports Illustrated report questioned his unexpectedly high score of 22 out of 36 in the ACT, the school released him in July 1997 before he ever played a game for them. That same summer, he received a citation for soliciting prostitution following an undercover operation by the Las Vegas police. Later, an NCAA inquiry found Odom received payments amounting to $5,600 from booster David Chapman. Coach Bill Bayno was fired and UNLV was placed on probation for four years.  Odom transferred to the University of Rhode Island but was forced to sit out the 1997-98 season. He was admitted as a non-matriculating student, and was not allowed to play intramural basketball. His room and board was paid for by his father, who was covered by the G.I. Bill. After two semesters and a summer session, Odom earned his eligibility to play basketball. His career at Rhode Island had been in jeopardy after the first semester, when he vanished before finals. However, Rhode Island coach Jim Harrick persuaded three of his four instructors to allow him to make up his work. The coach also had Odom work with DeGregorio, who had become a Rams assistant and was the player's closest friend in college. Odom was also inspired by his maternal grandmother, a nurse who had raised five children and returned to school to earn her degree in 1980 at age 56.  Odom played one season for the Rams in the Atlantic 10 Conference, where he averaged 17.6 points per game and led the Rams to the conference championship in 1999. He earned first-team all-conference honors and was named the Atlantic 10 Rookie of the Year. He was named the most valuable player of the Atlantic 10 Tournament after his three-pointer against Temple University at the buzzer gave the Rams their first A-10 Tournament title.

Did Lamar go to college?

Answer with quotes: He decided he was not ready, and decided to attend the University of Nevada at Las Vegas.


Problem: David was born on 28 January 1858, in St. Fagans near Cardiff, Wales, the eldest son of the Rev. William David, a fellow of Jesus College, Oxford, a classical scholar and naturalist and his wife Margaret Harriette (nee Thomson). His mother's cousin, William A. E. Ussher of the Geological Survey, first interested David in what was to be his life work. At the age of 12, David went to Magdalen College School, Oxford in 1870. In 1876 he gained a classical scholarship to New College, Oxford.

In 1896 the Davids bought 26 acres (10.5 hectares) at Woodford, in the Blue Mountains, with an existing weatherboard cottage, two-roomed with two skillion rooms at the back. To emphasise his Welsh origins, Edgeworth David named the Woodford cottage 'Tyn-y-Coed', the 'house in the trees' (often mistranslated as 'the shack in the bush': 'ty' is a proper house in Welsh, not a mere hut).  In 1915 the Davids offered their home to the Red Cross convalescent home for the rehabilitation of injured servicemen and the Woodford Academy boys erected a flagstaff for the Union Jack and Red Cross flags for the soldiers in residence. When the Cooee marchers trooped past in November 1915 some of the wounded soldiers were brought up to the main road to greet the marchers. Although they had work and commitments in Sydney, Woodford was the David's primary residence from 1899 until 1920. They retained the Woodford cottage as a favoured country retreat until Edgeworth's death in 1934. Tyn-y-Coed was destroyed by bushfire in 1944 with only a chimney stump remaining. Its grounds are now occupied by eight modern houses, their gardens and adjoining bush.  In September 1920, David was created a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire for services during the war.  Returning to Australia, David purchased Coringah, a cottage in the Sydney suburb of Hornsby. He also took up a long-cherished project, the writing of a definitive work, The Geology of the Commonwealth of Australia. In 1921-22 David helped set up the Australian National Research Council and served as its first President. In 1924 he retired as Professor of Geology at the University of Sydney, the chair passing to his student Leo Cotton, a neighbour in Hornsby, New South Wales, whose brother Max Cotton created Lisgar Gardens in Hornsby. In 1928 he discovered what he believed were Precambrian fossils, creating controversy which remained until his death.  In 1931 he published the Geological Map of the Commonwealth and the accompanying Explanatory Notes, designed to be part of his Geology of the Commonwealth of Australia. He died in 1934 without being able to complete this work and was given a state funeral.

How long did they use his house for rehab?

Answer with quotes: until 1920.


Problem: Isaac Asimov (; c. January 2, 1920 - April 6, 1992) was an American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University. He was known for his works of science fiction and popular science. Asimov was a prolific writer who wrote or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000 letters and postcards. His books have been published in 9 of the 10 major categories of the Dewey Decimal Classification.

Asimov was born on an unknown day between October 4, 1919 and January 2, 1920, inclusive. Asimov himself celebrated it on January 2.  Asimov's parents were Anna Rachel (nee Berman) and Judah Asimov, a family of Jewish millers. He was named Isaac after his mother's father, Isaac Berman. When he was born, his family lived in Petrovichi near Klimovichi, which was then Gomel Governorate in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (now Smolensk Oblast, Russia). Asimov wrote of his father, "My father, for all his education as an Orthodox Jew, was not Orthodox in his heart", noting that "he didn't recite the myriad prayers prescribed for every action, and he never made any attempt to teach them to me".  In 1921, Asimov and 16 other children in Petrovichi caught double pneumonia. Only Asimov survived. He later had two younger siblings: a sister, Marcia (born Manya, June 17, 1922 - April 2, 2011), and a brother, Stanley (July 25, 1929 - August 16, 1995), who was vice-president of New York Newsday.  His family emigrated to the United States when he was three years old. Since his parents always spoke Yiddish and English with him, he never learned Russian, but he remained fluent in Yiddish as well as English. Growing up in Brooklyn, New York, Asimov taught himself to read at the age of five, and his mother got him into first grade a year early by claiming he was born on September 7, 1919. In third grade he learned about the "error" and insisted on an official correction of the date to January 2.  After becoming established in the U.S., his parents owned a succession of candy stores, in which everyone in the family was expected to work. The candy stores sold newspapers and magazines, a fact that Asimov credited as a major influence in his lifelong love of the written word, as it presented him with an unending supply of new reading material as a child that he could not have otherwise afforded. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1928 at the age of eight.

Where was he born?

Answer with quotes:
his family lived in Petrovichi near Klimovichi, which was then Gomel Governorate in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic