March Madness. Even though my beloved Huskies aren’t in it this year, I still love it. At no other time during the year can you watch 4 different games at the same time (all crazy – all madness) from 9 am in the morning to 9 pm at night.
What does March Madness mean to me?
Early memories. I remember in junior high when they would roll out the TVs during PE, and we’d sit there on the wood floor in our “PE uniforms” watching the games. I remember how they’d turn on the TV during the 10 minute “between class” breaks so we could catch the games. I remembered other kids asking if I caught the end of the Duke game, if I saw the most recent buzzer beater, or the 5 seed that got crushed by a lowly 12 seed up and new comer Gonzaga.
And it was the same throughout the rest of my school career. It was almost as if the whole world stopped for those two first round days – 32 games spread out over 12 hours…and watched. The sheer number of games alone was a spectacle in itself.
Men’s college basketball is a different game. Sure each team has it’s “stars”. But it’s still the most pure form of basketball in my opinion. No million dollar contracts (for the players). “Team” ball. Students in the crowd that have waited their entire lives to upset an undefeated team coming to their home floor (WHO’S HOUSE!), camped out at the front door of the arena in 40 degree raining weather for the past two nights only to paint their bodies in their team colors 2 hours before game time – going in half naked and starved. And the emotion shows on the court too. Bodies fly around on the floor and in the stands. One and done. Don’t let it be your team.
All for a chance at what starts today. The experts and analysts and conference champions and the ratings percentage index – none of it matters as soon as that ball gets thrown up in the air for the first tip off (today at 8:45 am PST).
One of my best memories was following my favorite college basketball team of all time (The Huskies of course) to the first round in 2005 in Boise, Idaho. After hearing that I had received tickets to the opening round and round of 32 (since I was such a loyal fan from 2000 when we were terrible), I was scrambling to get the days off from work and trying to get people to go with me. Since I had already graduated from school (I was given one extra year of eligibility as a basketball fan! :p) I wasn’t dealing with what everyone else still in school had to before the first round started: Finals.
So after rounding up a few close friends (mainly for company – and to share gas/hotel costs) we headed to Boise. Lucky for us the Blue Mountains had one of the worst snow sessions I’ve ever seen. I was literally trying my best to follow in the tracks of a semi – who was leaving me (A SEMI!) going downhill. The drive to Boise is in the top 5 “worst drives I have ever taken” list. After finally getting to Boise that Wednesday night at 10:30 pm, we were lost. And here’s the problem with Boise: Everyone that lives there can somehow tell you’re an “out of towner” (could it be the Washington plates? MAYBE) and they blatantly lie to you. I have never had so much incorrect information given to me over a 3 day period. And it’s not even that they said, “I don’t know”…
OK – quick side complaint. If someone asks you where a road – or a hotel – or ANYTHING is in the area that you live – you either know where it is and give them directions – or you don’t know – just say it! Just say, “I don’t know where that is”. Don’t try to make up some sort of directions when you have no idea what you’re talking about. You’re very nice. But your directions got us even MORE lost. And it’s not that this happened with 1 or 2 people. It happened with almost everyone we met there.
Seth: Where can we park? (once we got to the arena)
Parking Guy: See that road down there behind those stands? Keep following along that road and then go left past the 3rd grand stand and you’ll see a bunch of orange cones you can drive through to the booth where you can pay for parking.
(We follow the directions and get to the booth)
Booth Guy: Sorry, you’ll have to turn around and come in through the other direction (the other direction is stacked with cars trying to pay for parking). I can’t allow you to enter the parking going this way.
ARGGGHHH…(just 1 out of at least 10 examples of us getting misdirected)
And now that I’ve got that off my chest, I can talk about the “good things” about the trip. I got to see my beloved Huskies make it to the sweet 16. They didn’t play that well – but they played good enough to make it there. Obviously, I had a feeling that we’d be knocked out during the next round (ALTHOUGH LAST YEAR WE GOT SCREWED BY THE REFS! GARRR!).
We were able to walk around a lot (as it was a college campus – that sucks BTW – if you’re considering Boise State, don’t go there. There are other campuses across the country that are much better looking at the least) and immediately after the live games we were able to watch, we went immediately to the hotel to watch the rest of the games on TV – and drink. The drinking, I almost hate to say, was my favorite part. Over a 2 day period (minus the sleeping and time actually spent at the arena), 3 of us consumed over 60 beers in the hotel alone. That doesn’t take in to account the drinking we did at the local Japanese grill, red robin, chili’s…etc. When you’ve got game after game after game after game – and games shown during commercial breaks and the half time show – that’s a lot of drinking to go along with those games. I can proudly say, it has to rank in my top 5 of “most consistently drunk over a 2 day period” list. (I must have a lot of lists I guess)
And even though the weather was freezing for most of the time, and even though the city of Boise was pretty boring and full of liars – I had a blast. It was probably and will probably be one of my favorite “sports fan” experiences of all time. And I have the NCAA tournament to thank for all of that.
Good luck to all of the teams participating over the next few weeks. Especially those with the odds stacked high against them. Everyone loves to root for the underdog.
And for those of you at work on this glorious day – please do check out http://www.ncaasports.com/mmod/welcome for free streaming on demand video of most of the games on. I know that I’ll be enjoying them.
(I have pictures that could go along with this post – will try to post later).
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