March Sanity
You know what time of year it is.There's the madness depicted at left - the kind that was on display when Boston University got into the NCAA Tournament on Saturday.
But if you've read my work any of the past 7 years, you know that I also have my own personal bout of March Madness that I succumb to.
The record-keeping of every bracket I've filled out since 1993.
The brackets of my wife (including back when she was simply my girlfriend) since 2001.
But change is in the air.
There will be no racing from store-to-store Monday afternoon for me searching for a place that sells the New York Daily News so I can have the same bracket as I have every other year of my life.
Thanks to the expansion of the tournament to 68 teams, the look of the bracket has totally changed. I could have responded to this in one of two ways: 1) my head could have exploded, or at least I would have turned into a drooling, muttering-to-myself loon, or 2) I could take this opportunity to clean up some of my previous bouts of craziness.
I'm happy to say that after initial resistance to the expanded field, I ended up going that second route. While I'm sure it'll be a challenge getting my wife and two daughters (this is the first year I'll be getting both daughters to fill out a bracket - I'm hoping one of them likes Boston University to go all the way) to fill out brackets before Tuesday evening, the fact that I'm not spending precious minutes trying to track down a specific bracket makes a huge difference.
When it comes to watching the tournament, the iPhone may change my life. Allegedly there's a free app that will allow me to watch any game. Which means that when I'm driving home and there's usually that off-time game that I never seem to find on the radio around here and only look up the score later on espn.com...I can watch or listen to that game. Theoretically. I'll still believe it only when I see it. (Or hear it - if I'm driving home obviously I would plug the iPhone into the speakers and listen to - not watch - that game.)
I'm not sure why it is - perhaps I'm too busy at work, maybe I'm busy with kids, maybe I'm just getting old - but I'm not quite as excited about the NCAA Tournament as I have been in past years. I'm still excited - but I'm just not as excited.
Which makes me think - maybe it's not so much a lack of enthusiasm. Maybe this feeling I have, heading into this week that is usually fraught with madness...maybe that's just a sense of calm.
Calm? This time of year? The NCAA Tournament isn't the only thing that looks different this March.
