March Madness has arrived. We've reached the eye of the tornado, so to speak, the lull between lesser followed Conference Championship tourneys and the widely popular NCAA Championship tourney. Like The Masters, it's a tradition unlike any other. Sixty-eight teams get in, only one goes undefeated to win it all. This tourney, which was cancelled and sorely missed last year, due to the covid pandemic, garners attention far beyond the boundary of sports fandom. Colleagues, girlfriends, cousins, parents and siblings of college basketball fans are all willing, even excited at times, to participate in a four-day piece of the month-long celebration.
Traditionally scheduled on a Thursday through Sunday in the middle of March, the first two rounds of the College Basketball Championship Tournament boast 48 games in four days. On the first two days, from 800 AM till 800 PM, thirty-two of those games are played, with multiple basketball games broadcast on multiple media networks for twelve hours or more. It is a frenzy of sneaker squeaks, whistles, buzzers, iron clangs, ball thuds, coaches and players yelling, along with lots and lots of advertising. Hyped doesn't begin to describe it. Its long standing popularity may only be overshadowed by its consistent growth in popularity. The tourney rallies current students, alumni, past and present fans of 68 schools in 32 conferences around the country. Nothing else in sports compares.
According to the Smithsonian Institute, the first known bracket pool was hosted at a bar in New York in 1977, thirty-eight years after the tournament started in 1939. Before '75, when John Wooden retired from coaching at UCLA, everybody knew his team would win (they won 10 of 12 tournaments during his tenure), so there was little interest in predicting a tourney winner. Prior to that, the tourney wasn't big enough or known enough to become the basis of nationwide attention. From the first bracket pool for the tourney in '77, the '79 tourney with Magic Johnson and Larry Bird bringing national hype, till this year's tourney scheduled to begin Friday, March 19 (atypically not on Thursday), billions of dollars have changed hands through bracket competitions, sanctioned or otherwise. The bracket is likely the biggest cause of the tourney's popularity, but we'd be foolish to think that's the reason alone.
My bride and I married in 1997, nearly twenty-four years ago, and I'd be naive to claim that we're the same boy and girl now that we were then. Any of you who have lived out decades of marriage understand the compromises and sacrifices that are made in order to forge a life and family together. Over the years, hobbies, habits, desires and perspectives are honed and hardened. Disciplined routine becomes a way to survive and thrive. While the time I've spent building a family is far longer than a college basketball career, there are similarities. The discipline, routine, belief and perspective a team has will make or break its season. In each practice and game, habits are honed and teammates learn what to count on and what they can't count on.
I root for my favorite college basketball team, the Kentucky Wildcats (surprisingly not in this year's tourney), and I like to root for teams with good fundamentals, discipline and coaching. I have observed over decades of watching the tourney each year, that these are the teams most likely to show up clutch in close games, gutting out the last seconds. I think the second strongest draw of the College Basketball Championship tourney is clutch play. I think the second best weapon in my marriage is clutch play. College basketball coaches, college basketball tourney fans and my bride are all looking for the same thing: a clutch player. When the unexpected occurs, it's the clutch guy who's unrattled. When two of the starters foul out, it's the clutch gal who fills in. When the teenage son loses his mind and gets defiant, it's the clutch parent who distracts and de-escalates. Clutch play is not only attractive, it's necessary and sought-after.
I'm not able to take Friday off work to spend all day watching basketball as I have in the past, but you can be sure I'll be paying attention. I'll fill out a bracket and enter it in as many contests as I can find and as many pools as I can afford. Like much of America, even a good number of peripheral sports fans, I'll be cheering for the teams I picked to win. While some bracket pool participants choose winners according to strength of mascot, and others by favorite color, few pick from a basis of knowledge. The exciting part is the solidarity. With so many people focused on the same thing, we'll all be able to witness those clutch players and moments that draw us in.
In over thirty years, I've never won a college basketball tourney bracket contest, but I've been married for 23 years and counting. I pray that I'm as clutch as the kids I'll be cheering for this upcoming weekend. Good luck with your brackets and may we all turn up clutch when needed. This is bakesHere.
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