Let Madness Ring

In the next few months we will all be entering what I would call the Sports Doldrums. After the Superbowl the College Bowl season it seems like all the air is let out of sports. The NBA finals have lost a lot of credibility over the years with the obvious special treatment of who is deemed a "superstar," and that has made them much less interesting to watch. Throw in the involvement of one Dick Bevetta and you might as well be watching the WWE. Plus the interesting teams like the Suns or the Mavericks will usually lose early in the playoffs for numerous reasons that I can’t even bring myself to start talking about. My fury for the NBA runs deep.

In the summertime we have Baseball. I do like to watch baseball, and I think Playoff baseball may be the most energy charged and interesting sporting event in the world, but the mid summer games just drag. You know I love the Sox (yes there is only one THE Sox), but even I don’t care if they win their 101st or 102nd game (unless it's against the Yankees). By mid summer there are Web Gems and tennis highlights on ESPN and that’s it. I can feel my heart sinking at the thought of fighting my way through another summer holding my breath until College Football kicks into high gear. But between the Super Bowl and the new College Football season there is one thing that keeps me going.

That's right boys and girls. Get out you calculators. Get ready to do your research. Get ready to taunt your friends and neighbors with merciless fervor. Get ready to crush you co-workers on the office pool. Get ready for the inevitable 5-12 upset.

It's time for the big dance.

It's March Madness.

Can you think of a more compelling and engrossing event? Can you think of anyone you know who does not participate in the Madness? My Mom even fills out a bracket every year, and last year she destroyed all of us and we have never heard the end of it since. What sporting event creates this type of interaction and interest? People skip work. They spend money on streaming video packages to watch games at work, which their employers allow because they want to do the same thing. And everyone, everyone, lays down a bet. You may have made your wager already. It may not be monetary. You may have agreed to streak the office bathroom if you are the first out of contention. You may have agreed to shave specific body parts. Everyone has something riding on the Madness.

Which is why it's time to make the whole tournament a national holiday.

Do you think that Washington's Birthday shuts the country down like the tournament does? Do you really think that people are rushing to get out of the office or laying down braiding their back hair as a bet because Labor Day is around the corner? And yet we get time of work for these days so we can go home and spend time with our families reminiscing about how Washington cut down an imaginary cherry tree and then told the old man he did it? Please.

It's time that the Madness got the respect that it deserved. It's time that tournament the respect that it deserves. By respect I mean my ability to sit naked in my basement on the LoveSac eating Cheetos in my own filth watching every game consecutively until the police peel my semi-conscious carcass out to take me to the ICU to help me recover from the artificial cheese/caffeine poisoning.

Yes I might die. Yes prolonged staring at the TV may make me go temporarily blind. Yes my bladder might be forever damaged by holding it all the way through three overtimes. But dammit it will be my right as a human being to waste away in my own drool all in the name of winning the office pool.

That's why they call it March MADNESS people.

Now that's a holiday.