It is shown how ternary BCH codes can be lengthened to get linear codes with covering radius 2. The family obtained has the ternary Golay code as its first code, contains codes with record-breaking parameters and has a good asymptotic behavior. The ternary Golay code is further used to obtain short proofs for the best known upper bounds for the football pool problem for 11 and 12 matches. (C) 1997 Academic Press.
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