MY MARCH MADNESS

BINGING BASKETBALL'S BRACKET

First of all, let’s get something straight. I’m not a basketball fan!

Maybe I should have been a basketball player. I was five foot 8.5 by the time I was thirteen. My first encounter with the game was during P.E. in high school. We played half court, and I can say without reservation, I could palm the ball, dribble like nobody’s business, but I couldn’t make a basket “fer love ner money.” They made me a guard. I towered over most of the girls, and I could usually scare them into giving me the ball. Not a skill to brag about.

My son inherited my prowess for the sport. He was 6’2’’ so we encouraged him to go out for basketball. Every time a player shot and missed a basket they had to run the track. He spent more time on the track than the basketball court. Turns out, baseball was his sport. Our daughter was all volleyball and softball.

All that to say, I have never had an interest in basketball. Three years ago, my husband, Barry, went out of state for a few days, and I discovered March Madness. Thumbing through the newspaper, I ran across THE BRACKET and became intrigued. I printed out an enlarged copy and watched every game during the twelve-day tournament. Even though I had no loyalty to any team after the first round when both our alma maters were knocked out, I wrote down every score and got excited about upsets where low ranking teams beat high ranking teams.

Last year, I did it again. I learned how to keep track of games on other channels by watching the scores at the top of the screen. But because we have closed captions on, they often interfere, and I have to wait until the commentators aren’t saying anything in order to see the scores. I know I could shut off the captions, but then I couldn’t see what the commentators are saying. Or I could switch them to the bottom of the screen, but then I couldn’t see the score of the present game.

Three years ago, I had no idea what March Madness was. Maybe it was the involvement in something new that got me hooked. Maybe doing something while my husband was away that he would never expect me to do, made it fun. I wasn’t breaking the law or even leaving the house. And yet, I could say upon his return, “You’ll never guess what I did while you were away.”

This is my third year with March Madness and Barry is out of town. Even though it’s lost a bit of its luster, here I am again, binging on basketball. I have the game schedule, the Bracket, and the remote control at my side as I write. Maybe it’s just having control of the TV remote that intrigues me. It can’t be basketball, because when the tournament is over, I won’t watch again until March Madness 2026 rolls around. Meanwhile, I’ll entertain myself by finding out who won the Iditarod this year.

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