It’s that time of the year once again. Classes and study take a temporary back seat to basketball on college campuses all over the country. Even some springtime romances are put on hold until it’s all over.
Especially if you are lucky enough to have one of the 64 teams invited to this year’s ‘Big Dance’ close by. Of course, if one of them turns out to be your alma mater or hometown team, the excitement escalates to a form of madness in some cases.
Perhaps that’s why they call it ‘March Madness’. The excitement is infectious and the tension only increases when we get to the annual NCAA Division I basketball championship.
To be inside one of the major venues when two top ranked teams come to do battle can quickly turn into one of the most exciting events you have ever attended. The excitement is infectious. The spectators, although on very different sides, are very serious and very dedicated to their home teams.
So many hopes and dreams rest upon the results of the annual NCAA Basketball Tournament known as March Madness. Careers can be made or broken depending on performances at the Big Dance, which is what most players and coaches call the tourney. Multi-Million dollar contracts are at stake as well as the national championship.
Serious attention must be paid to wearing the proper colors and accessories to the game. There must be no doubt about whose side you are on when the roving camera eye focuses on you. Dress with sufficient panache and you can even draw nationwide attention and be the subject of twitters and blogs.
But, of course, that’s not why you wear the colors. It’s a matter of pride. Pride in your local guys taking on the whole country in a spectacular tournament the starts with 64 teams and lasts for the better part of 3 weeks until a new national champion is decided early in April.
It takes dedication and even being a bit eccentric to really get into the heat of the moment. Sometimes you wonder how they do it. Dressing up is such outrageous garb and jumping up and down like maniacs. As Mark Twain said, “it isn’t always easy to be eccentric you know”. They call it fun.
When it comes to wagering on one of these emotion filled contests….best of luck. So many unpredictable things can happen. All American players can have a bad day. A player who has been only slightly above average all season suddenly becomes the dynamo that propels his squad to the next level and destroys both the spread and the over & under during one adrenaline packed half.
So go ahead and make your carefully calculated picks, but be on the lookout for the Madness of March.
