March Mildness

I can’t get too excited about the NCAA basketball tournament this year; it’s probably because I didn’t enter a pool, but even so, March Madness seems like the sporting equivalent of American Idol: lots of hype and bluster, followed by snarky commentary and lots of tears.

Part of my detachment is that I’ve never been a huge basketball fan; as a kid, it was my worst sport and the one most likely to send me home crying with broken glasses.

Another reason is that the only teams I might care remotely about—my undergraduate alma mater, Minnesota, and my graduate institution, the U of WA—failed to make it to the “big dance;” and without money riding on it, I just can’t get my heart beating fast over whether Washington State wins.

But I think the biggest contributor to my boredom with the whole thing is that it doesn’t live up to it’s billing: if it’s really going to be “March Madness,” then I want to see clinically insane people having grand mall seizures all over the place.

I think it would great TV if we got to witness people really wigging out. Maybe one of the coaches could tear of his suit and go running around the course naked and foaming at the mouth. Maybe a player could have some sort of psychotic episode where he sits on top of the basketball rim refusing to speak in anything but rhyming couplets. Or maybe an announcer could flip out on his broadcast partner and drown him in his water glass.

If ever there were a march for my own madness, this one might be it. Turning fifty probably qualifies as at least a minor “get out of jail free” card. I would imagine if people see me running down the street in my underwear screaming epithets at the world, they’ll merely attribute it to the stress of this life event.

Is it madness to bet on that?