Descent into Madness

I enjoy the NFL, college hockey and basketball, and a little NASCAR to pass a lazy Sunday afternoon on the couch. However, I'm not a huge follower of any particular sport. I'll watch a fair amount of football and have even been known to go to the local watering hole to watch a game that was not shown locally. I don't really watch hockey or basketball anymore, my teams are not televised in Minnesota (Maine Black Bears and Arizona Wildcats, respectively). At best, Ill catch the end of a Sunday race.

When March Madness hits though, I do fill out a bracket. I know somewhere between jack and squat about the college teams, but it's free to play (or at least it can be).  I feel pretty good about filling in a bracket because I had a good experience back in graduate school. 

On this particular year (1993), our departmental pool was running. Some students kept a large scoreboard on one of the whiteboards in the hall tracking the competitors. It comes down to Championship weekend and there is a 3 way tie for first: myself, the department head, and another student. The department head and I had picked UNC to win and the other student picked Michigan. It was a close game until... 

That effectively eliminated student number 2. It was just the department head and me with total points being the tie breaker. I had 150, department head had 130 (or thereabouts). 

Lorax wins!

Not saying there was any money involved, but if there was, I would have offered to take the department head out for a consolation beer. Surprisingly, he came and still treated. I mean, if there had been some money involved, but of course there wasn't because that would constitute illegal gambling.

That represents my one March Madness claim to fame. However, it usually isn't as bad as this year. My bracket was dead on the first day when UNM fell to Harvard. In fact my entire West division is kaput. I also lost a second final four team when Georgetown choked. Ah well...