Boy, What Are the Odds She’d End Up Like This?

I received one of those late-night calls every father dreads from his daughter.

“Who do you like--Valpo or Kentucky?”

You know how fast they grow up. One day they’re crawling, the next they’re walking and before you know it they have their own bookie.

It’s an adjustment, and it still takes me by surprise when one of my kids calls to talk about a nag, and I catch myself telling them to talk nicer about their mother before I realize they’re only studying the Daily Racing Form.

I’m happy they’re doing their homework, of course, because I don’t ever remember them studying as kids, but I wonder now if their burning curiosity about who might be a first-time Lasix user is a little misguided.

There’s no question the younger daughter is a serious gambler, because she has everything riding on a grocery store bagger, but it’s the older one who surprises me.

She’s an accountant, and yet I still don’t mind talking with her. I realize that’s because she has an interest in sports, which keeps her from being dull, but recently I’ve noticed she has had questions about how the weather might affect the over-and-under. I talk about who might win, and she wants to know what’s the point spread?

I’m almost willing to bet I have something to do with this, the way I raised her, and now I worry she might lose everything and move back in with us.

“You certainly are responsible for your daughter’s gambling,” said Joelle Greene, visiting associate professor of psychology at Pomona College. “You probably took her to games when she was just a kid and asked her, ‘Who do you think is going to win?’ and then praised her when she picked the winning team.”

I’m willing to lay 3-1 odds this is one visiting associate professor of psychology who has never read Page Two, because when I took the little whippersnapper to games and she didn’t pick the winner, I made fun of her.

“B.S. Skinner,” Greene said, and I barely knew the woman and she was already swearing at me. “No, no, it’s B.F. Skinner, and Pavlov’s dog.”

I didn’t really care whose dog it was, but it seemed pretty important to her that I knew whose dog it was. “It’s Pavlov’s dog,” she said. “You know--psychology 101? You show some reinforcement, and the behavior is going to continue.

“It’s Las Vegas and the slot machines--the intermittent reinforcement schedule,” Greene said, and I think if I talked that way I’d enter a monastery, take a vow of silence and never annoy another person. “There’s no predictable path--you put the first nickel in and you might win and that becomes very motivating. You give your daughter an inside tip, she wins, and you’re reinforcing her behavior.”

When I asked the professor if she ever finds herself telling her own child, like I did my daughter during her formative years: “I betcha I can throw Barbie farther than you can,” she said she has a 3-year-old son.

I wasn’t intimidated: “I betcha I can throw Barbie farther than your son,” I said, and she tried changing the subject, starting in on this theory about “learned helplessness.” I told her I’d get back to her later to talk about the Dodgers.

Now I know some people have a real problem with gambling that requires professional help, but we’re just talking here about little girls all of a sudden growing up, leaning on the craps table, and yelling, “Bring it home to Momma!”

How was I supposed to know I was doing something wrong as a young father when I was telling my kid, “I bet you can’t pass first grade.” Hey, if I knew what I know now, I’d have named my dog Pavlov.

All I can do is my best, and so before I took off for Las Vegas to watch the NCAA tournament in the comfort of a sports book, I stopped by Staples Center on Wednesday night and checked with Clipper Coach Alvin Gentry.

“Valpo or Kentucky?”

“Valpo,” Gentry said, and a father can’t do much more for his daughter.

*

THIS WOULD have been his second year at St. John’s, which means Darius Miles would have been taking on Wisconsin on Friday in the first round of the NCAA tournament in Washington D.C.

“I think about it all the time,” Miles said before the Clippers’ game against the Washington Wizards on Wednesday night. “I feel like I’m a part of that team; they sent me a St. John’s jersey with my number on it and I have it hanging in my house.”

Miles is making $3.54 million playing for the Clippers this year; there’s no telling what he’d be getting from St. John’s, but probably not as much.

“The college game is so fast-paced, and that’s my game and that’s the way they play in the Big East,” Miles said. “I have to slow my game down for the NBA.”

Miles, who not only has the game but the personality and demeanor to become one of the NBA’s top stars, signed in November of his senior year in high school with St. John’s--making the decision to play in the NBA only after dazzling scouts in later all-star games.

“I’m picking Wisconsin to beat St. John’s in the tournament,” Gentry said. “If Miles was playing for St. John’s, I’d have them in the Final Four.”

*

TODAY’S LAST word comes in an e-mail from Matt von Kroeker:

“Your pretentious effort in caring about Coach Andy Murray’s well-being was laughable, and the thought of you being in the building for a Kings’ game makes my skin crawl.”

That reminds me--the Kings have us sitting together for the next game.

*

T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com