Jay Elias | You can take it with you

"I have wasted Time, and now doth
Time waste me"
- Richard II

2002-03-16- 6:11 p.m.

The Ides of March

No sporting event in the world beats the NCAA tournament, not even for me, who loves baseball and usually hates basketball. And this is the best part, right now, the first four days and two rounds.
The rational part of my brain knows to hate college sports. All those athletes, unpaid by the schools for which they earn millions, while barely receiving an education. Not that many of them would benefit much from one; standards for college athletes are appallingly low, and even those are often faked so that a player with talent can be recruited by the school that wants him. Meanwhile, this leads to further inequities; girls’ athletic programs are barely funded, while male athletes in televised sports are given the best of everything. And of course, college football is a joke, where rankings are determined largely by how badly the good teams wallop the inferior ones in their conferences, while the top ten teams rarely play each other until the farcical national championship bowl games begin.
But all my complaints fall by the wayside when the field of 64 is announced. To me, it brings me back to a simpler time, when we’d photocopy the brackets from the paper and have a betting pool, and I’d be invested in every game played by schools I’d often never heard of. The opening weekend was always the best; fourteen hours of nonstop action, with upsets and beer and pizzas eaten without ever leaving the couch. Good friends, and good times.
It isn’t only nostalgia that fuels my passion for March Madness. The NCAA tourney is athletic chaos. Sixty-four teams, matched up and placed into single elimination games. Your star player has an off night, and the best team in the nation goes down. To quote an old baseball proverb, over the course of a season, every team will win sixty-one games, and every team will lose sixty-one. It is what happens in the other forty that matters. And the tournament is just those other forty games, condensed.
The American dream is supposed to be a myth. Post-modern thought and philosophy mocks it. But for three weekends in March, it is alive and well. Teams with money and history are pitted in single combat with poor upstarts; unknown coaches outthink patrician leaders of long vintage. The race goes not always to the swiftest. Talent takes a back seat to that most elusive of qualities: heart.
On forty-nine Saturdays a year, I live in a world where idle millionaires live in expensive homes and eat fine meals, while hard-working peasants live in hovels in places like Anacostia and Corona. I live in a world where ignorant prep school kids are given automatic admission to Yale while kids from south Boston and Federal Hill fight for scholarships to state universities. I live in a world where I have to pick a president from among the two wealthiest families in the nation.
For the other three Saturdays, I live in a world where anything is possible, and anyone can beat anyone, and sometimes they do. I’m no class warrior, but it isn’t a bad world to live in. For three weekends a year. It brings a smile to my face.

previous |next |archives

If you want to make me
famous or just complain: Jay Elias -
jelias@diaryland.com

Older

Doesn't Take Much and That's Messed Up - 2004-03-15
Like Water Under Bridges - 2003-09-08
Jesus On The Dashboard - 2003-08-13
An Administrative Announcement - 2003-08-11
Don't Worry, It's Coming - 2003-08-02

Diaryland

join my Notify List and get email when I update
my
site:

email: