It’s March. Do you know what that means? It means March Madness has begun! It means Husband will spend approximately 3-4 hours a night studying basketball stats! It means my first-round picks will still be better than his! And it apparently also means 80 degree weather.
That last one is kind of a bummer, because I’m gonna feel pretty guilty sitting inside all day for the next couple weeks, glued to the TV while the daffodils bloom and the sun shines down gloriously on Washington. Maybe we can pull the flatscreen onto the deck for the late afternoon games.
March is a holiday season in this household. A special time to reflect on free throw percentages and mascot fierceness. A time to renew my faith in bracketology and hold out hope that my picks will reign supreme again, like they did that one time in 1997.
I can’t tell you why I love college basketball so much. I personally suck at basketball. I was once told that I shoot baskets like I’m mad at the backboard. But I suspect it has something to do with rocking a mini Duke cheerleading outfit in the Christian Laettner heyday.
And before you boo and hiss at the thought of that, understand that my elementary school self just wanted to support my big sister’s college team. I didn’t even know any other teams existed. In fact, I’m pretty sure I only watched games in the hopes that the players would spontaneously burst into a choreographed rendition of “Greased Lightning.”
They never did. But the games were still kind of exciting. I liked the idea of rabidly rooting for your team, like you actually had something personally invested in the outcome. So I kept watching. And my love of the Madness grew until I started playing sports in high school, when my savage competitive spirit was finally awakened by the sheer frustration of wearing a skirt while chasing around a ball with a goofy curved stick. I started filling out brackets. One year I ended up beating out all the dudes writing for the sports section of our high school paper. And it’s been a love affair ever since.
So good luck to all you March Madness fans out there. May lady luck smile upon your brackets and push your cinderella to the finals. Unless you’re in my pool, in which case I hope to crush you mercilessly.
Unlikely Diplomat 