My Thesis

Every year, a few weeks after Punxsutawney Phil sticks his big furry head out of his groundhog hole, comes the glorious month of March. March is famous for Spring, my birthday, and SPARTA! (get it? This is Madness!) The madness I'm talking about is none other than March Madness. It is the time of year where millions of patriotic Americans fill in their brackets. The action and drama sucks you in and keeps you addicted. What is it about this college basketball tournament that makes you check score updates every five minutes when you know you should be studying for the physiology final? I believe it's because March Madness has so many sublime life lessons that we do not even know we're taking in. We may be too ignorant (or "ig" as my friend Jason likes to say) and stubborn to take in these ideas from everyday life, but it's much easier to digest if it's neatly packaged into a nice-microwavable-ready to eat bracket format. If you think about it, college basketball is just like life. Disagree? Maybe you'll understand after my points:

1. Some schools, no matter how hard they play will never make it to the big dance (dance is another name for the tournament).
2. There are some schools that only settle for winning it all, while for others, simply getting into the tournament is a good enough story to tell their grand kids. GO LEHIGH!
3. There are certain people who claim to have it figured out, but if you look at their brackets, it's no better than yours
4. Sometimes you're just better off guessing.
5. The best teams last year (UNC, UCONN) aren't even in the tournament this year.
6. There's always a winner and a loser.
7. It's not the end of the world if you lose, there's next year.
8. There are worse things if your pick Florida lost to BYU, like if your pick to win the whole tournament(Lehigh), lost in the first round.
9. People get hurt, tears are shed, and dreams are shattered.
10. Companies try to make as big a profit on the tournament as they can, while the players don't get paid a cent.
11. People like to cheer for the cinderellas; happily ever after is nice indeed -unless the underdog is Lafayette College, then you'd just point and laugh.
12. Each 16th seed has a chance to beat the first seed, but that doesn't mean it has ever happened or will happen (16th vs. 1st are 0-102). There's a chance life came from slime, but that doesn't mean it did.

The game doesn't just come to life; it is a piece of life contained in a 50 by 100 feet wooden rectangle. And for a couple of weeks we get to watch every aspect of it -for free! (Fine for a small fee if you have to pay for cable or internet) So I advise you to take some time and enjoy a little learning experience. Oh yeah #13: It's much more fun with friends and family.