Madness (February or March)

"Madness" is defined as; The quality or condition of being insane.
So, why is it that we refer to the NCAA Basketball tournament as March Madness?  I think I can probably sum a response to that question with the following;

1) The sheer insanity of trying to watch every game that's being televised...at once.  Have you ever gone to sports bar to watch 3 and 4 games being played at once?  If you're lucky, you'll walk out of there with only a slight cramp in your neck, from the constant rotating back and forth to see who's doing what and why are those people seated in that section of the bar screaming...only to find out that your TV is on a delay and they're seeing everything 7 seconds before you did - that's reason enough to cause insanity.

2)  You try to watch the 6 games being played at the same time in the luxuries and comforts of your own home...there's no better reason to be insane.  For one, you can't possibly have enough Picture and Picture options on your TV to see that many games and to top it off, CBS has a production crew that (I'm convinced), is just playing with our minds by switching from game to game, because some team just went on a 10-0 run and they thought you'd like to know.

3) How about the fact that you filled out 27 brackets, forgot to bring them home or if you did bring them home, spend an hour after every game highlighting the teams that won and crying and swearing that your "cinderella" team got knocked off in the first round.  Nice call on that  pick and thank you for your donation!

4) Finally, if you're like me - your insanity begins long before the "March Madness" when you're staying up way past midnight to catch teh west coast games that tip at 11:30pm EST so you can see who the heck UC Santa Barbara is and why is Dickie V talking about them. 

The fact is, we get consumed by the game, the number of games and the importance of every missed shot, buzzer beater and match-up.  It's a great time to be a fan.  In Ohio high school sports, we get the opportunity to begin this madness this week.  From Wrestling, Swimming, Ice Hockey and Boys & Girls Basketball - Our Madness begins this week. 

So, if you're ready to join the insanity - check out http://www.cdab.org/ or http://www.ohsaa.org/ and look at our area brackets to catch a game beginning this week.  The games / matches are just as exciting and just as important to these teams, players and coaches.  Good Luck to our Lions in their Tournament Madness!
Go Lions!