March Madness, Bracket Gladness

It's a sports' lover's favorite time of the year. Why? Because you have the NBA Playoffs coming up. With the NHL, it's the same thing. Spring training is here for MLB fans, and college football teams are just starting to practice. But above all, the best ticket in sports right now is NCAA hoops, March Madness, the Big Dance. 65 teams enter, only one leaves. With a 'one and done' system, and the lowest percentage of divisional teams actually participating, it's probably the toughest championship to win in all of sports, but it's also the most fun to be a part of.

No, I've never played in the tournament. That's not what I meant by being a part of March Madness. There are many other ways to be a part of this great spectacle. The first is easy for anyone who attended any of the schools amongst the 65. In the interest of fairness, I graduated from UCLA. So, guess who I'm rooting for?

The next way to participate is a standard ritual amongst groups of coworkers, friends and fellow students, that being the almighty bracket pool. Every year, thousands upon thousands of people take some kind of approach, whether mathematical, personal, or otherwise, and fill out a bracket, hoping to either win a bit of cash, or at least bragging rights among their friends. These brackets are so fun, they've become a part of pop culture in having face-off battles between any number of different arenas. I've seen them used for music, film and practically everything else. There's even a book on the subject, called "The Enlightened Bracketologist."
There's no way I could as much justice to the subject as sports-writing guru Frank DeFord, so I'll just link his little essay on the subject. Click Here. And, of course, I filled out a bracket this year. I was invited by my friend Jeremy who I went to UCLA with in the 1990's, the last time that the Bruins actually won a championship. Sure, they've come close since, but this seems to be their year.

To tell you the truth, when it comes to sports, I'm just a die-hard baseball guy. It's the only sport I truly love. I can watch any game at any time with any teams involved and be happy. I despise football, especially pro football. (College football gets a pass for my alma mater, but the BCS leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and so does the amount of money being fueled into this one college sport.) I can't get into hockey. The NBA is the epitome of selfish excess in my eyes with a huge tendency towards players than teams. But college basketball, that's different. Sure, a lot of these players are using this stage as a tryout for the NBA draft, but that's only a handful. For the most part, the only thing at stake is that actual championship and school pride, and that's how it should be.

Most of the fun in watching the NCAA Tournament is in rooting for the underdogs, and seeing a horde of upsets. I even found myself rooting for the underdog even if it ended up ruining my bracket! Case in point, USD. My sister went to the University of San Diego. They were always known as having a 'respectable' basketball team, a strong team amongst a bunch of strong teams in the West Coast Conference, but certainly one that couldn't measure up to the rest of the field in an actual Division I tourney. They proved everyone wrong this year by beating perennial dance attendees, Connecticut. Unfortunately, their run was put to an end by another upset winner, Western Kentucky. Somehow it seems as if the WCC teams always come out looking better than everyone at first thought, i.e. Loyola Marymount back when Bo Kimble was paying tribute to fallen friend Hank Gathers, or the jockeying attendees of Pepperdine and Gonzaga.

But, my favorite part of the tournament this year has been Davidson. Why? Not only is Davidson true to its name by being the 'son of David,' the offspring of the boy who smote Goliath, but I was the only person in my entire bracket pool to pick Davidson to reach the Sweet 16. That pick vaulted me from the middle of the pack to third! It didn't really matter that my Elite 8 picks are compromised thanks to losses by Duke and Pitt. (In fact, I really enjoyed watching Duke nearly eat it in the first round and then choke in the second.) Seeing the one team you really believed in, that one underdog you put your faith behind, not only win their first game against a tough Gonzaga team, but then win their second round against powerhouse Georgetown, well, that's a blast. For the record, I also have Davidson advancing into the Elite 8. For that, they'll have to get past #3 Wisconsin, but I don't see it as a problem. I originally had them beating USC to get into the 8, but the Trojans lost their first round match-up. And there's no way in hell I wasn't going to have a smirk on my face because of that.

But, when all is said and done, I am a Bruin through and through. There's no way around it. I'd have picked UCLA to win the whole thing even if they actually placed sixth in the Pac-10, making them the last to make the cutoff for the tournament. I love March Madness, filling out the brackets and watching the upsets, but I love UCLA more. Attending UCLA was one of the best times in my entire life and I have a lot of great memories. Watching basketball and football in Pauley Pavilion and the Rose Bowl respectively was second to none. And this year, with likely pro draftee Kevin Love, the super quick and accurate Darren Collison, shooter extraordinaire Josh Shipp, and my favorite feisty rebounder, Lorenzo Mata-Real, they have more than a chance, it's almost expected. Many said that their road to the Final Four was far easier than any of the other #1 Seeds. That may be true, but the remaining seeds in their bracket are #'s 3, 7 and 12, making it seem as if it was one of the brackets with the most parity, unlike North Carolina's East bracket, with its 1-4 seeds still intact.

Well, no matter. I have UCLA beating UNC in the final with a score of 69-67. Here's to hoping it's not actually that close, and that the Bruins wipe the floor with those heels of tar. Go Bruins!

Re-Tales: One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish

As an employee for any corporation, you have to keep any personal feelings and politics behind. But there are times when even a saint's patience can be tested. I've already said that customers aren't always right, but that isn't the half of it. Customers are people, and people can be downright opinionated, cruel and ignorant, such as in the following example:

With the ever increasing awareness of global warming, and its effects on every living being on this planet, a lot of companies, products and people are 'going green.' As such, we had a 'green living' display of books. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that our world is changing dramatically. In fact, if one wanted proof from that kind of credential, one only need look as far as last year's Nobel Peace Prize winners, shared by Al Gore and the IPCC, a panel of over 600 reputable authorities from over 40 countries. And yet, there are still people in the dark corners of this country who refuse to believe it.

One day, a customer decided to make his opinions known about the 'scam' known as global warming. Turns out, that's what his favorite conservative radio host had said. He held up a copy of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth mere inches from my face, in a very aggressive manner, telling me what a 'load of hogwash' it was and how it was the biggest scam since, well I don't remember what, but I was starting to boil over. As politely as I could, I said that I wouldn't discuss that topic as I disagreed with him. Quite rudely, he responded, "that's because you don't know ANYTHING." At that point, I felt like abandoning the customer as, since I don't know anything, I surely can't help him any further. But, somehow, I continued. He kept talking about the subject with his friend, all the way to the book he requested. He simply couldn't accept that someone didn't feel the same way he did and had to vocally represent that dissent. To me, those are the actions of someone who is very insecure with his opinions.

Someone who is completely secure with their own ideas lets everyone have their say. Instead, bookstores are besotted with people we call 'book-turners.' These people, mostly conservatives, come in and willfully hide books by or about left wing politicians. Lately, their usual target is Hillary Clinton. If there's a stack of her books on a table, the top one gets turned over. A faceout on a display? Turned over. A spine showing on the shelf, turned so the pages face the customer. The really paranoid ones do a massive amount of shuffling so that Democratic books are pushed way back and covered with books about their own favorites. Is all this really necessary?

I've seen much worse than this, especially in the aftermath of 9/11, with people saying the most horrible things about coworkers who didn't happen to be 'American' in their eyes. It's simply deplorable. Books are supposed to be tools of learning, not tools of ignorance, and bookstores should be a place where everyone can come together. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening in our near future.