Best Weekend of the Year

March 15, 2007, 12:15 pm; posted by
Filed under Articles, Steve  | 4 Comments

This is my favorite weekend of the year — the weekend of the NCAA college basketball tournament. Over the next four days, 64 fortunate teams from all over the nation will play 48 exciting games, in an almost non-stop frenzy of action.

It’s a thing of beauty.

Basketball is my favorite sport — possibly because I’m genetically equipped to play it, more than any other major sports. College basketball is my favorite kind. The NBA is impossible to watch, a bunch of freakishly tall multimillionaires standing around watching a couple guys do all the work, and when they shoot, the ball almost always goes in. How dull is that? And although we were unjustly excluded this year, the tournament frequently involves my favorite sports team on any level — the Syracuse Orangemen. So it’s a combination of things I love, and that’s before the format that makes it possible for everyone to act as an expert, predicting the outcome of every single game and giving me a passionate interest in teams like Davidson and Oral Roberts.

Although baseball is still the quintessentially American sport, the NCAA Tournament might best sum up America’s virtues: equality of opportunity, survival of the fittest, valuing production over prestige, teamwork over individuals, and underdogs over favorites. Everywhere you go in this nation, you see basketball hoops, on garages, at the ends of driveways, in parks from Bedford-Stuyvesant to Billings. You can play in a large group or you can play alone, and the only piece of equipment you need is a $5 ball. Watching football unites much of the nation, but more of us play basketball.

With my schedule of classes this year limited to Mondays and Wednesdays, I thought this year might be the first I could actually watch all 32 first-round games, but then I noticed it was the week of spring break, and I couldn’t pass up a chance to see my girlfriend and my old roommate. There are many more important things than basketball.

But hearing that opening music today, watching the highlights from years gone by, sitting back and knowing there’s twelve hours of glorious, exciting basketball ahead — that’s the sort of anticipation that’s worth waiting a year for.


Comments

4 Comments to “Best Weekend of the Year”

  1. The Peach on March 15th, 2007 1:54 pm

    Woo Hoo! I contributed to this atricle. The words “survival of the fittest” came out of my mouth first. Well, today anyway.

    Thanks Steve for asking Josh, and thanks Josh for not having anything productive to say, therefore causing Steve to have to use my idea. You guys are the bestestest.

  2. Laura B on March 17th, 2007 10:36 pm

    My friend Megan and I were just talking about the same sorts of things this afternoon…how college basketball is so much more rewarding and thrilling than the NBA. Does anyone even WATCH that anymore? Anyway, I’m sorry the Orangemen did not make it in. But feel free to cheer for the Saluki’s if you find yourself in need team…

    :)

  3. Steve on March 17th, 2007 11:13 pm

    Sure, I’m all about Southern Illinois! Punish VA Tech!

  4. Laura B on March 18th, 2007 6:37 pm

    SWEET 16 BABY!!!!

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