March Madness With a Toddler

Today starts one of the least productive work weeks of the year in America. Thursday and Friday will be stalled due to massive live streaming of NCAA tournament games in offices nationwide.  Some die hard fans may even choose to take vacation days so they can substitute cold beer and wings for TPS reports.

The lack of production starts today, however, not Thursday. All around the country right now people are filling out their brackets. Workers are meeting at the coffee pot to argue who is the better upset choice, Sienna or Murray State. Which 12 seed will beat a 5 seed this year? Can Kentucky's freshmen carry their team to a title like Carmelo did back in 2003? The discussion rages on.

Since I am a lowly worker bee I don't care about lost production. I love March Madness. The first weekend is quite possibly the greatest sporting event of the year. It has always provided me with a lot of enjoyment, and I expect more of the same starting Thursday.

This year, however, I find myself with different priorities as the tournament approaches. Last year in my March Madness post I shared a video of my Arkansas Razorbacks winning the National Championship in 1994. At that time this was the most important and relevant basketball video in my life.

This year there is a much more relevant basketball video that I would like to share. I hope you enjoy this video of my all time favorite slam dunk artist.

March Madness with a New Dad

Let me join the millions of other budding basketball geniuses who will use their personal space this week to write about the upcoming NCAA basketball tournament. I hate to be a follower, but the tournament is way to important for me to skip over. So for this week you can call me a sheep. I will watch as closely as possible with a 4 month old child even though my beloved Razorbacks had the worst season in team history and will be watching like me. I can still find rooting interest in the tourney by rooting against some bad guys like John Calipari or the more popular rooting for my bracket.

With or without the Razorbacks the NCAA tournament is one of my favorite events of the year. I actually think it is the greatest sporting event of all. The Super Bowl is the bigger one day affair, but the opening weekend, Thursday through Sunday, of the big dance can't be topped for excitement. When you follow that on through to the final four you have a recipe for a great sporting event. To be more precise it is a great sporting month.

Much of the interest in the tournament is because of how well it sets up for gambling. I am not a gambler outside of a few hands of poker and betting on the ponies. I do however enjoy picking my brackets and comparing with friends. I have been doing this as long as I can remember. I remember back before the Internet my Dad and I tracked the tournament using the brackets in the newspaper. We would keep copies on the back of the couch so we could easily reach them and mark the latest winners and losers. It will be loads of fun to pick brackets with Braden some day. I'm sure he will enjoy keeping up with it as a child just like I did. This year he will certainly watch with me even though he has no idea what he is seeing. Arica has noticed that basketball is one of his favorite things to watch on TV. I guess all the people running around give him a lot of movement to focus on.

Starting this weekend the NCAA Basketball Tournament will be a part of Braden's life. I hope it will be something we enjoy together for a long time. More than that I hope he gets a chance to enjoy the ultimate thrill of the tournament like I did back in 1994. That wonderful tournament 15 years ago gave me the thrill of seeing my favorite team, the Razorbacks, win a National Championship. I sure would like to experience that kind of fun again with my son.