By Sean Fitz-Gerald
March is the best time to be a sports junkie. It’s the month when the hockey season is closing in on the playoffs, the baseball season is starting up and college basketball is into its season ending tournament.
The NCAA final four tournament provides more excitement and drama than most professional sports. The tourney starts with 64 teams fighting through a single-elimination format to get to the championship game.
There is nothing more exciting than watching a team play under pressure. There is no substitute for the adrenaline rush caused when the team’s highest paid, er, highly recognized player hits the big shot.
However, the faithful viewer must beware, for there are those who would like nothing more than to distract you from your basketball bliss.
It could be a punk-ass roommate who keeps bitching and whining about how much he would like to watch the mating rituals of the three toed sloth on the Discovery channel instead of watching a tied game with three minutes left.
It could be the assholes who insist on calling you five or six times during the game just to ask you how to properly format footnotes on an essay.
It could even be that annoying police officer who calls to tell you there’s been an accident and you have to rush down to the hospital to say your last goodbye.
Or, heaven forbid, you run out of food or the sweet nectar of the gods, beer.
Be diligent fellow viewer, there is a way to escape these destructive distractions and enjoy the basketball coverage to its fullest.
First, unplug your telephone just before the game.
Secondly, proper preparations are essential for the survival of day-long basketball coverage. Make sure you wake up early enough to pick up enough chips, pretzels, nachos, dip, peanuts, Ding Dongs and Ho Hos to last you the day. (Note: but boxes, just to be safe). Also, one must be wary of one’s beer supply. A dry game is as funny as a steel-toed kick to the crotch. Buy beer. Lots of it. Buy it now.
And lastly, roommates can be death for the enjoyment of a game. There are two ways of assuring your solitude in front of the tube. First, you can buy police tape and white chalk. Tape off your living room and draw a chalk outline of a body on the floor, explaining to your roomie you are evidence and cannot leave the room. Or, with a disguised voice, call your roomie and say there’s been a terrible accident and he has to leave immediately.
Follow your heart. Remember, March Madness only comes once a year. Assholes and their distractions will be with you all year. Be selfish, be antisocial, be homicidal, just watch and enjoy the games.
Leave a Reply