The arrival of march madness

Dale Addison, Senior Staff Writer
Published On: 03/24/2008

Let the office pools and Vegas wagers begin. It is officially the time of the year to bet your house, your car, your life savings and even your significant other if that is what it takes to win because MARCH MADNESS has finally arrived!
Go ahead and pick out the best seat in the house to witness the action from, order your favorite draft-beer and order enough wings to feed an army because it is time to indulge in the BIG DANCE!

Corporate America eat your heart out because you are about to lose 1.7 billion dollars in productivity during the next month.

And now that CBS is streaming all of the games live online, expect that number to rise to somewhere in the neighborhood of 2.5 billion.

After the field of 65 has been announced on selection Sunday, filling out a March Madness bracket seems more contagious than a deadly disease.

It is always amazing how basketball enthusiasts seem to develop a scientific model for breaking down the individual matchups of each round in order to figure out the teams that will advance. It is even more astounding how the casual fan often seems to do a better job of determining the winner of the NCAA tournament because they will pick their winners based on the school’s colors, the ferocity of the mascot, the city the campus is located in or the teams with the craziest names.

No matter how you determine who will cut down the nets and enjoy the confetti waterfall, this time of the year creates a buzz in the atmosphere that only Santa Claus and Christmas can match.

Every day you roll out of bed for the sole purpose of paying as close attention as you possibly can to every morsel of information being spewed from the college basketball expert’s mouth because you want to be reassured the team you picked actually stands a chance.

How GREAT do you feel when you inform everyone that you picked the No.12 seed to upset the No.5 seed and you can prove it by showing them the bracket you filled out?

Better yet, how AWESOME does it feel to have the thought of being the only person in your inner-circle that has the Final Four pegged perfectly on your bracket? Those are the exact scenarios that create a sense of pride in your heart that GOD said he rebukes in the Bible.

This time of the year is what each and every TRUE sports fan lives for.

There are so many discussions centered around choosing a winner that are some of the most deep and thought provoking conversations you can ever partake in, and then there are the reasons and excuses bracketologists cling too that seem as endless as infiniti for why certain teams lost.

Every day throughout March creates a new challenge for you and your bracket, yet it never ceases to AMAZE that realizing you are going to fall short of your dream of being a bracket master still manages to find a way to peak and encourage a new level of heightened interest on your part.

Just as November and December are forever linked with the carving of the ham or turkey, March will forever be associated with the wonderful aroma of hot wings being dipped in ranch dressing and draft beer being poured into an ice-cold glass..

So regardless whether or not you picked the UCLA Bruins to beat the North Carolina Tarheels in the championship game, the point is your life would seem empty if you did not get a chance to participate in the Big Dance.
GOOD LUCK and HAPPY DANCING!