SNAP # 29 – MADNESS? I’M ALL IN  

Last Thursday morning I shot off an e-mail to an East Coast friend suggesting we coordinate a time for a long chat. She quickly responded and we set up a time on Friday between her book club and a doctor’s appointment. She mentioned, however, that she was quite busy putting together her NCAA March Madness Brackets but would expect my call. Did I not detect a lack of enthusiasm here?

Although I understood her apparent time constraints, I was puzzled by her NCAA Brackets remark. After all, Judy and I are both on the high side of Baby Boomer-eligibility and, in the many years I’ve known her, she’s never expressed any interests in sports. Although I didn’t want to annoy her, interfering with her “putting together her brackets”, curiosity trumped good manners and I called immediately.

Unlike my friend Judy, I was born into a baseball family so I cut my teeth on catcher’s mitts and Louisville sluggers. To this day, all my friends have a healthy respect for my over-all knowledge about sports. March Madness, I know, is that crazy period in the NCAA basketball world when 68 college teams compete down to just one winner. The losers sit, dejected and crestfallen, on the bench with sweaty, smelly towels hanging off their heads. The winners, who bring sweaty and smelly to a higher level, hug, squeeze, high-5, and run around the basketball court like demented people.

NCAA Basketball Tournament 2012. Bench of  losing team.  Photo by newstime.com

NCAA Basketball Tournament 2012. Winners. Associated Press Photo

To my memory, it’s also the time when “the guys” hang around the water cooler, trash-talking their colleagues’ picks for the twenty-dollar office pool. “Jeopardy” gets shoved aside for the countless games that are played in venues throughout the country. It’s a time when college alums return to their “roots”, wear looney costumes and paint their pusses.

There’s a reason this is called March Madness.

Tournament Pep Band Getty Photo

NCAA Basketball Tournament 2012 Fan. Photo by getoffmylawnkid.blogspot.com

But, back to Judy and our conversation. Every year, she told me, she picks the Winners/Losers in the four NCAA divisions, starting with 64 teams and working down to one. This all has to be done prior to the first shot being dunked. (By this time in the conversation, my respect and admiration for her had climbed to an all-time high.) This started, she added, about 20 years ago when she was persuaded to put her picks (and, money) in her son’s fraternity pool at the University of Pennsylvania. To Judy’s delight and the chagrin of her son and his “brothers”, she won the Pot.

This got me thinking. Is this such a “guy thing” after all? According to Bob Scucci, Race & Sportsbook manager for the Stardust in Las Vegas, it’s not. “It’s growing every year,” he says. “The interest (in the tournament) is crossing over into other demographics. It’s not just the male population from the ages of 21 through 50 like it was years ago. It’s crossing over now and you are seeing a lot more women who have their favorite teams that they want to follow and they get caught up in the excitement of the tournament. You see a lot more people of all different ages. It has crossed over to different segments of the population.”

It seems March Madness is big business in the gambling world as well as at the office.

Although the Nevada Gaming Commission does not keep specific records, they estimate that March Madness could possibly bring in more money than the Super Bowl, the single-day biggest betting event in the world. Las Vegas alone could bring home as much as $90 million. Holy LeBron James!

Now I’m thinking perhaps I’d like to “get in the game.” After all, both my alma maters, Florida State and Iowa State, are competing. I live 40 minutes from the UNLV (University of Nevada at Las Vegas) campus. They’re playing as well.

 SO, HERE’S THE SNAP: Why not give yourself permission to participate in something, anything, you know absolutely nothing about. A screwball idea? Go for it. Get crazy. Shove the “better you” aside for some hijinks. And, prepare yourself for failure. It’s character building.

Emboldened by Judy’s encouragement, I asked a good friend (male sports fanatic who always makes picks)) if I could piggyback onto his NCAA Bracket choices. While cutting off his right arm seemed more palatable, he agreed to let me participate and share in the effort with the understanding that next year I’d be on my own. Right………

NCAA Basketball Tournament Brackets Photo by basketball.org

Last weekend there were 48 ball games played. My job was to record the winning teams, moving them up in the brackets. We tumbled a bit, like everyone, when highly-seeded Duke and Missouri were upset. The field was cut, however, from 64 teams to the “Sweet Sixteen”. Starting again, on Thursday, these winners will compete to reach the “Elite Eight” and, then, the “Final Four”. (Those names seem silly to me but I’m keeping my mouth shut.) Many of “our” picks are still marching on and our choices for the “Final Four” are all alive. GO TEAMS!

OUR CHOICES:

The Final Four: Kentucky, Michigan State, Ohio State and Kansas.

The Winner: Kansas

(The Sleeper: Marquette)