Best Sporting Event of the Year

I was raised a football guy, through and through. I grew up playing football, watching football and idolizing the gridiron heroes of the early 90s Buffalo Bills.

In high school, I lettered four years in football and baseball, and never really followed any other sports besides NCAA football, NFL and MLB.

Turning 22 in May, with organized athletics well in my past, my competitive thirst is quenched by another sport these days, undoubtedly the easiest to organize and participate with friends - the one that simply calls for a pair of sneakers, a ball, and a hoop.

And not only has my love for basketball blossomed into contentious afternoons at local courts with a few pals, but I've become an avid fan of watching the game I once labeled pretentious, with its intermittent episodes of freaks defying gravity - a gift that 5-foot, 10-inch white boys like myself just can't relate to.

Dr. James Naismith, I apologize.

The bottom line is that basketball players comprise some of the most gifted athletes in the world. The game's combination of agility, quickness, endurance, strength and the ability to be impetuously decisive sets basketball apart from perhaps any other sport.

This brings me to the real reason I wanted to write this column to begin with: the NCAA basketball culmination that consumes many of us every March.

There are always monotonous Super Bowls, humdrum NBA finals, lackluster World Series and insipid Stanley Cup finals, but the NCAA tourney is one annual championship that never leaves us wanting more.

We begin every spring as self-proclaimed "bracketologists," entering into as many pools as possible, hoping that perhaps this year is the year that March's madness eludes us.

But it never does.

Each year, without fail, the hype and excitement that surrounds the tournament is not only lived up to, but is wondrously exceeded. It is the best sporting event of the year, with enough upsets, buzzer beaters, overtimes and Cinderella miracles to jumpstart even the skinniest of the skinny guys with glasses, who only entered the office pool because they were begged by co-workers.

But after the first round with bracket in hand, Eugene from accounting is hooked to the March Madness drug for the next three weeks.

Here at UB, the university community got its real first-hand taste of the college basketball excitement, thanks to Reggie and the boys. Their valiant efforts this season garnered a first-ever home playoff game and a trip to Cleveland, where the Mighty Maniacs' presence outrivaled the other eight schools in true Buffalonian fashion.

I was asked by one of the stadium workers in Cleveland if we ever sit. No, we don't!

And chances are, if you are at home or at the sports bar rooting on your bracket, frequent elevation accompanied by yelping and clapping is not unorthodox, especially in the last five minutes.

So with the Final Four taking place this weekend, good luck to all of you whose bracket hasn't been totally decimated. To the rest, whose bracket is as shot as mine is, still enjoy the final weekend of the best sporting event of the year.

It should be awesome, baby!