Madness Is Goodness

Okay, so when I posted last week and said that last week was the most wonderful time of the year, maybe I jumped the gun a little bit. The first weekend of the NCAA basketball tournament officially ushers us into Spring. By the time a champion is crowned, baseball season will be upon us and fully challenging me to get outside and do anything constructive. For many years I was nuts about the tournament, here are some quick memories:

• Getting "sick" in high school for the first couple of days of the tournament.
• Spending all of the days leading up to that in school pining over brackets at the expense of my education. As fate would have it, I was actually preparing for life in the working world.
• Watching March Madness at Midnight Madness at the Keene YMCA. It was madness, for lack of a better word.
• Burning a UConn pennant after their victory over Duke. It was given to me as a present by a friend of mine who went to UConn.
• Rigging an entire box of aluminum foil to my TV antenna in college so I could more clearly see though the haze of static that blanketed Miami's local CBS affiliate.
• Three words: "One shining momennnnnt..."

I'll admit, I've become less of a basketball fan in general than I was a few years ago. I blame the NBA and it's lenient draft entry policies which I believe thins out talent at the pro and college levels. Still, we all know that there are few things in sports that are as universally addictive as filling out an NCAA bracket and following your picks through at least the first two rounds (depending on how you do). Today, I proud to say that this year, finally, I have become one of the millions of employees across the nation who is blowing my company's money by watching the tournament at work. Ahhh, America.