By TIERNAN O’NEILL – News Writer
It’s March. Spring is springing up and winter is melting away. With March comes the most invigorating time of the sports fan’s year: March Madness, the NCAA basketball tourney that comes along each year.
March Madness is the best American invention ever. Forget Thomas Edison’s light bulb or George Washington Carver’s peanut butter, March Madness has something that neither peanut butter nor a light bulb has, chaos.
Why is chaos so great? Chaos creates unimaginable results. Who in their right mind would have betted for the University of Texas at El Paso Miners, a small state school in Texas, to beat basketball powerhouse University of Kentucky in the championship game? Who would have thought that No. 2 seed Duke University would lose to the No.15 seed Lehigh University in the first round just last year?
This is why I am enamored with March Madness. Chances are you will never predict a perfect bracket. Believe me, I’ve tried time after time and failed again and again. And that is okay, if it was predictable then it would boring.
Another reason why March Madness is God’s gift to American sports is because it gives attention to schools that are underrepresented in college sports coverage. Even if your team loses in the first round, they still made on to the national stage. Even though North Carolina A&T lost in the first round, they still made it to March. They got their 15 minutes of fame and they loved it.
Just as the sweet violet begins to bloom, collegiate athletes from all over the nation are hitting the courts for the chance for the championship. The tournament consists of basketball powerhouses going for the title and small schools that are just happy to be a part of the tournament.
The mix of the two creates this blissful anarchy that I crave. Every year I wait with anticipation for March. I don’t wait for the beginning of spring – no. I wait for my escape from my dull reality: March Madness.
