EVERYONE’S A SPORTS FAN

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I am a sports fan, and I assume that everyone that is a regular reader of this blog is as well. As sports fans, we enjoy watching, playing, and following the daily news of our favorite sports. ESPN is the television staple for sports fans; we go to bed at night and wake up in the morning to Sportscenter trying our best to convince our significant other that each airing is in fact a new edition. As sports fans we tend to associate with other sports fans (birds of a feather…as they say). It’s nice to have friends that enjoy the same sports as we do, and we enjoy watching the games with them whether we root for the same or rival teams. For those of us that are truly fortunate, we will marry a fellow sports fan (which I did). Which means that sports will never be one of the things you have to sacrifice when making the usual compromises that come with marriage. All in all, being a sports fan is awesome because it gives us an escape from the rigors of everyday life, and a hobby to be passionate about.

Most sports fans have a certain sport or sports that they follow very closely. Personally, I love the NFL and NBA above all others. However, I also follow college basketball closely, and I stay in tuned with the on-goings of college football (although I only watch a few full games each season). I am also a golf fan (and a bad golfer), and I keep tabs on NASCAR and MLB. As for hockey, I’m a 30 year old black man raised in the south. That should explain my interest in hockey. We in the community of sport fandom have different levels of passion about a wide variety of sports, but our devotion to those interests connects us with other fans around the globe. This is a special and unique community eleven months of the year. In March however, there is nothing unique about being a sports fan, because everyone suddenly becomes a sports fan, or at least a fan of college basketball.

Strange things start to happen once the calendar turns to March. You suddenly don’t mind hearing that cheesy “One Shining Moment” song every time you turn to CBS. Your company totally ignores the corporate policy on gambling and turns a blind eye to all of the tournament pools taking place in the office. People who don’t know the difference between dribbling a basketball and dribbling a soccer ball are suddenly into college basketball and filling out brackets. I rarely, if ever, fill out a bracket. The odds against getting it right are astronomical, so I just don’t take the time to do it. Plus, if I did fill them out, Kentucky (the college basketball team that I have been following since my youth) would always end up winning. The best and most amusing thing about this college basketball phenomenon is the strategies used by others when filling out their bracket. Some of them include:

Picking the Best Team – This is the method that I would prefer if I filled out a bracket (with Kentucky always winning every game, of course). This method is used by the college basketball fan that really follows the sport. They know (or think they know) the advantages and disadvantages of each team in every matchup. They fill out their bracket with first-hand knowledge of the teams involved.

Conference Affiliation – Die-hard college sports fan are fiercely loyal to their conferences. If their team can’t win, they would rather a team in their conference win. This is strictly for bragging rights. If they can’t say Roll Damn Tide! They’d at least like to be able to shout SEC! SEC! SEC!

Chalk – In this situation the highest seeded team will win every game in the tournament. This will NEVER happen in a 68 team tournament.

Cutest Mascot – This one is understandably more popular with women. I’m not saying that it can’t work, but I am saying that the University of Georgia has never won the tournament. Personally, I don’t think that dog they have for a mascot is all that good-looking.

Which Mascot Would Win A Fight – Let’s just say, this is probably why the Fighting Okra of Delta State don’t play Division 1 basketball. Obviously, they wouldn’t have a chance.

Then there’s my personal favorite. I promise you I am not making this up. Please keep in mind that I earn my living as an engineer, thus my co-workers are also engineers.

Two years ago, one of my co-workers was filling out his bracket. He went to a small school in the Northeast that will never win the NCAA tournament, neither will any team from the conference that they play in. Therefore, it was obvious that he wasn’t filling it out for his team or a fellow conference member to win. Instead, his chosen method was….

Which School Would Win in a Fight – After hearing this, I immediately thought that he would simply pick the school with the worst academic reputation to win each game. I was assuming that he would equate partying, drinking, and not doing well academically with the ability to fight. Boy was I wrong! In fact, he had the opposite strategy. He picked the engineering schools with the best academic reputation to win each game, because they have the intelligence to build better weapons and defense systems to be used in combat. I am not making this up! Using his logic, if MIT ever figures out how to apply that brain power to the hardwood, the tournament will never be the same.

Lines on paper (otherwise known as brackets) have helped make the NCAA tournament the multi-billion dollar enterprise that it has become. I hope the enterprising person who figured out how to get the whole country interested in the tournament has received some benefits from this tremendous idea. There isn’t much that the NCAA does right. In fact the NCAA tournament in the only thing that I think they do get right. It is only rivaled by the Super Bowl when you think of championships creating excitement for their sport. Think about it. The only people who give a damn about the World Series are people who live in the cities that are participating. The NHL, really? I challenge anyone to name the last three Stanley Cup Winners. The NBA is all about stars, so casual sports fans don’t really care which teams are playing in the finals, they are more concerned about which individual players are playing. As for college football, thanks to the recent dominance of the SEC, it has pretty much become a regional sport, almost like NASCAR (I know people in Big Ten country and on the west coast aren’t going to like that).

The NCAA tournament has something to offer for everyone. If you are a college basketball fan, you get to see the 68 best teams in the country battle for the title. If you are a casual fan, you get to stop by some pretty good games while channel surfing and realizing that nothing else is on. If you’re not a fan at all, you still get to pretend to know sports by filling out your bracket and joining your office’s “only legal in March” gambling pool.

As it always does, this year’s tournament will feature some monumental upsets, and some surprisingly close games. A twelve seed will definitely beat a five seed in the first round, simply because it happens every year. When this happens, fans and the media will absolutely love it. Everyone loves the story of the underdog taking out the favorite in the tournament. We are a country that loves seeing David slay Goliath. This is where I differ from most. While I don’t mind seeing an early round upset or two during the first week of the tournament, by the time we get down to eight teams, I root for Wal-Mart! I want to see the super-powers square off. The Butler’s and VCU’s of the world are nice stories, but they have no place in my Final Four. I am hoping to see Kentucky, Syracuse, North Carolina, and Missouri in the Final Four. They have been the best four teams all season and they all play in big boy conferences. Will it happen? Probably not, but that’s the fun of this tournament. None of us know what’s going to happen.

And now for my Baller & Scrub(s) of the Week….

BALLER – NCAA Tournament Selection Committee: You may want to take a screenshot of this section and frame it, because I NEVER GIVE THE NCAA PROPS FOR ANYTHING! This is the most asinine group of administrators in the history of the world. Yet, they manage to do a great job with the tournament year in and year out. Some years the tournament is not very exciting, but that is a product of how the teams play, not which teams are invited. Also, if you are a coach, team, or fan that feels as though you were snubbed, GET OVER IT! If you weren’t clearly one of the 68 best teams in the country, then you run the risk of being left out. I have no sympathy for #69.

SCRUB #1 – Every NFL Quarterback not named Rodgers, Brees, Brady, Manning (Eli), Roethlisberger, Rivers, Stafford, or Newton: I have bad news for you. Your team doesn’t like you very much. Whether they will admit it or not, your team has reached out to Peyton Manning’s representatives to check his interest in replacing you. Fortunately for the makers of Kleenex, Peyton can only take one of your jobs, so there will be a box waiting in all of the survivor’s lockers to cry out their frustrations when training camp starts. The NFL is a cold, cold world. Arguably the best quarterback in NFL history is now available. Never mind the fact that he is 36 years old and has had four neck surgeries. Your team still likes him better than they like you. So suck it up and get over it. Or you could simply go join Terrell Owens in the Indoor Football League.

SCRUB #2 – ESPN: I miss the non-stop Jeremy Lin coverage. What happened to it?! He still plays in the NBA, right? Is he any less interesting now? Don’t quit on us now, please start back inundating us with Jeremy Lin coverage.


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