Tomorrow marks the first day of three weeks of the greatest annual sporting event around. (The World Cup is the best overall.) NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament aka March Madness aka my favorite time of year. Every year, I look forward to filling out my brackets and have always treated Selection Sunday like it was Christmas Eve, full of giddiness and anticipation.
As a kid, I remember copying the brackets from the newspaper and creating my own replica on a piece of binder paper (obviously before the days of Excel). I would post my personal bracket on my closet door after taping four pieces of binder paper together and, throughout the tournament, I would update the winners and just look at the remaining board non-stop for a month. I also remember a neighborhood kid would make the same joke every year about schools like “Oral Roberts” or “George Mason” that have a person’s name and are in the tourney. He would say “there’s no way he can beat a whole college team….ha, ha, ha.”
Another memory that comes to mind is that after I would fill in my blank brackets, I would always wonder about the colleges I had never heard of. Bowling Green, Old Dominion and Miami (Ohio)--there's a Miami in Ohio??--are schools I remember being curious about back then. (For that reason alone, I picked Old Dominion in the first round this year.)
Growing older, my enthusiasm for March Madness has not tempered. Obviously, attending the single greatest college basketball school in history did not help. The fact that UCLA won the title in 1995 and I was in Seattle to witness it also contributed to the obsession. Now it is 10 years since I graduated and I still love it. UCLA is back near the top of the rankings and could possibly win it this year and all feels right in the world.
What I also love about it is that everyone is an expert about college basketball this time of year. In fact, CBS Sportsline.com has a webpage where you can compare your picks with the cast of How I Met Your Mother or The Early Show. Does anybody really care what Doogie Howser thinks? Its ridiculous, but yet still fun.
Office pools always add to the excitement of the tournament as well. Suddenly, you have a vested interest in the result of the BYU v. Xavier game simply because you chose one of them in a pool. Nobody knows anything about these schools and your cat might as well have picked the game for you, yet you still blindly cheer on your choice.
Each year, there are remarkable games and results that nobody could imagine. In a year when it looks like one team is certain to roll to the title inevitably an upset happens. Or a buzzer beater. Or a performance by a team that seems far to fantastical to be true. Yet every year without fail, something exciting and unforeseen occurs, reinvigorating my interest in the sport and the tournament.
So tomorrow it starts all over again and I will be watching games, text messaging my friends like mad, and keeping my fingers crossed for the Bruins to bring home title #12 for the alma mater. As usual, it will be pure madness.
As a kid, I remember copying the brackets from the newspaper and creating my own replica on a piece of binder paper (obviously before the days of Excel). I would post my personal bracket on my closet door after taping four pieces of binder paper together and, throughout the tournament, I would update the winners and just look at the remaining board non-stop for a month. I also remember a neighborhood kid would make the same joke every year about schools like “Oral Roberts” or “George Mason” that have a person’s name and are in the tourney. He would say “there’s no way he can beat a whole college team….ha, ha, ha.”
Another memory that comes to mind is that after I would fill in my blank brackets, I would always wonder about the colleges I had never heard of. Bowling Green, Old Dominion and Miami (Ohio)--there's a Miami in Ohio??--are schools I remember being curious about back then. (For that reason alone, I picked Old Dominion in the first round this year.)
Growing older, my enthusiasm for March Madness has not tempered. Obviously, attending the single greatest college basketball school in history did not help. The fact that UCLA won the title in 1995 and I was in Seattle to witness it also contributed to the obsession. Now it is 10 years since I graduated and I still love it. UCLA is back near the top of the rankings and could possibly win it this year and all feels right in the world.
What I also love about it is that everyone is an expert about college basketball this time of year. In fact, CBS Sportsline.com has a webpage where you can compare your picks with the cast of How I Met Your Mother or The Early Show. Does anybody really care what Doogie Howser thinks? Its ridiculous, but yet still fun.
Office pools always add to the excitement of the tournament as well. Suddenly, you have a vested interest in the result of the BYU v. Xavier game simply because you chose one of them in a pool. Nobody knows anything about these schools and your cat might as well have picked the game for you, yet you still blindly cheer on your choice.
Each year, there are remarkable games and results that nobody could imagine. In a year when it looks like one team is certain to roll to the title inevitably an upset happens. Or a buzzer beater. Or a performance by a team that seems far to fantastical to be true. Yet every year without fail, something exciting and unforeseen occurs, reinvigorating my interest in the sport and the tournament.
So tomorrow it starts all over again and I will be watching games, text messaging my friends like mad, and keeping my fingers crossed for the Bruins to bring home title #12 for the alma mater. As usual, it will be pure madness.
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