Holiday in March

Some of my coworkers may have heard this last week as I strolled into my office on the 3rd floor of Building A in the Yahoo! Center in Santa Monica:

"Merry Christmas Everyone! Best Day of the Year!"

Hopefully they weren't offended. It was pretty early for my office.

Most people would probably disagree with me when I say that the first day of the NCAA Basketball Tournament is the best day of the year. That is quite a statement...probably an overstatement. But what the hell, I am an emotional guy who gets riled up easily. You can try to debate the statement, you can squash my positivity, or you can just not be an A-Hole and bask in the warm, warming glow of March Madness.

Like all holiday seasons, March Madness' first day is merely part of the holiday. Like some sort of awesome hybrid between Christmas and Chanukah, it spills into multiple days of glory and presents. Most importantly, like all holidays, the NCAA Tournament has its high points and low points. The 2010 First and Second rounds were no exception. Let me take you through a few of mine.

High Point: Walking into a place of work full of TVs and the DirecTV March Madness On-Demand program on the first day of the NCAA Tournament. I really do enjoy my job.

Low Point: Receiving a phone call in the afternoon on Friday, March 19th from a co-worker in Atlanta who could care less about the NCAA Basketball Tournament and needs me to brainstorm ideas with her. At this point, all my ideas are oddly around Happy Hour and basketball. She apparently doesn't know that Michigan State and New Mexico State are playing now.

High Point: Living vicariously through a group of my friends (all University of Minnesota Alumni) that have taken Friday off of work to go to Milwaukee, WI to support the Gophers in their second straight NCAA Tournament appearance. I receive the following text from my collegiate roommate at 8:23am on Friday, March 20th: "Tickets secured. T-minus 1 hr until tipoff. Sh** talking to Xavier fans has already started."

Low Point: 3 hours and 5 minutes later I receive the following text from another college buddy who made the trek to Milwaukee: "Ugghh...I don't know which game was worse, this or iowa state in 05." Our alumni had fallen to Xavier 65-54 as the Muskateers simply outplayed the Gophers in the 2nd half. We are humbly returned to the "better luck next year" phrase.

High Point: I receive a text from my equally sports-obsessed friend on Saturday, March 20th at 4:45 pm PST: "Get to a tv dude. KU down 1 w/ 42 seconds left."

This represents the "madness." Northern Iowa has a VERY late lead against Kansas and could send the tournament's overall #1 seed home to Lawrence, which would effectively destroy almost half of America's brackets. Roughly 45% of all people playing some type of Tournament Bracket game said that Kansas would win the National Championship. All of those people, including myself, and my previously mentioned friend, were wrong. I listened to the text on my cell phone, found a TV, and watched as the #9 seeded Panthers ousted the mighty Jayhawks. While my bracket was destroyed and my pride (Def: pride) was sent down the drain, this was a great moment.

Low Point: I send a text to the same friend on Sunday, March 21st at 4:19 pm PST: "F***in CBS! Xavier/Pitt is 3 pts with 20 seconds left and they won't leave Cal/Duke (20 point game)."

This represents the wrong type of "madness." To me this is exactly what it felt like to be a kid and get a crappy sweater from your grandma or aunt. This is just ridiculous. No kid wants a sweater. No College Basketball viewer wants to watch Duke hold Cal over the coals in a 20 point massacre. Not even Cal fans. Granted, I realize I live in California and that Cal is a California school. Pretty obvious. Just to be sure, I polled three of my coworkers that are Cal grads on the following Monday: they verified that, yes, they wished the other game(s) were featured. Keep in mind the Texas A&M-Purdue game was tied and went into Overtime. But yeah, let's keep showing the Duke-Cal blowout. Genius.

Sure, I could have opened my laptop and used CBS' March Madness On-demand product to watch the end of both of the other games online. In fact, I did just that. However, I think 99% of people would agree that it is much more fun to watch the close games in HD on a 47" Flat Screen and render the blowout games to the 15" screen in LD (Def: Low-Definition) Stupid CBS.

High or Low Point (depending on how you view it): Early on Sunday afternoon I am catching up with my favorite aunt that lives in Chicago. She is a sports fan, but could care less about the NCAA Tournament (she likes the Chicago Bears - yuck). In the middle of talking to her, #5 Michigan State and #4 Maryland (aka the Greivis Vasquezes) decide to absolutely slug it out for the last couple minutes of their epic Second Round game. As if I wasn't distracted enough already, Michigan State's backup point guard Korie Lucious hits a buzzer-beating 3 pointer (0:51 seconds in here) to render me speechless with my favorite aunt. So, depending on your point of view, this could be a High or Low point of this epic "holiday" season. Is it an amazing moment that encapsulates all that is the NCAA Tournament? Or am I just a crappy nephew? I think we know where I stand.

Whether you celebrate Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, or nothing, if you are a sports fan, you love the first day and the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament. If you don't love it, you frickin' should. Oh the highs! Oh those lows! There is a river of emotion and pride involved (Def: pride) both on the court and with the fans that try to predict every David vs. Goliath upset. It's one of the only venues in sports where the small guys even get a chance to take down the big guys. Even if you are anti-collegiate athletics (cough-mydad-cough). Even if you believe that they shouldn't be "training grounds for professional athletes." You need to watch one game (exception: #1 v. #16 games) and tell me that these teams are not trying as hard as they can. Tell me they don't want it. I can't think of one time in sports where you see more players cry or show such raw enthusiasm. This is all bottled up over four great days. And just like Christmas, only a week later we get another holiday: Four more nights that we know as the Sweet 16 and Elite 8. Happy New Year...in March.