Every year around this time, there’s a big movement for college basketball players to get paid. There’s obviously a lot of money in NCAA hoops and the athletes aren’t seeing any of it.
But I don’t really care about that. The problem I have with the tournament of 64 is that for 80% of these kids, their lives will never be better than it is right now.
The athletes don’t know that yet. They still dream of the NBA or settling for abroad. They’ve been great players their whole lives and it’ll be a surprise when they aren’t fast enough or tall enough for the next level. Or worse, their bodies can’t handle the next level, and they’ll spend the next thirty years cursing their left knee for keeping them from their destiny.
Whenever I catch a game at a bar, I imagine the years of suicides these kids did for this moment. But for them, it was worth it. Most of us will never be as famous or as happy as these kids are now. But the rest of our lives won’t be a memory of something that happened when we were twenty.
I hope my life hasn’t peaked, and not just because I don’t know what the peak would be. I’d like to believe it will keep getting better. Last year at this time, I was really excited about what my life was going to become. Over the past year, I’ve never been happier to answer questions about what I do with my time, but I’ve also never been poorer.
A year ago, I had an idea about my life, and now I’m living it. The technical stuff is less fun than the concept, but at least there’s more to come.
April 6, 2009 at 1:46 am |
Only old men with enlarged prostates get boners during March Madness season. You make it sound like the whole world is going ape shit for college hoops, when it’s really just some retirement communities in Florida.
April 7, 2009 at 1:13 pm |
Sorry, didn’t mean to be so bluntly sarcastic. It’s just that I’m troubled by America’s dangerous obsession with collegiate athletics. The competitive, victory-driven shortsightedness of America’s college sports insanity leaves many victims in its wake. Is all the hoopla and hype worth the “years of suicides” that you mentioned?
American economics and foreign policy have been operating with the same level of beefed-up stupidity for quite some time: i.e., myopic, concerned with short-term results while ignoring long-term consequences, etc. America has been on steroids for a while and the Recession is the normal deflation which results from any overextension. The “years of suicide” are just beginning.
By the way, I also think hyping up the athletic aspect of higher education is a way for the non-intellectual to revel in one of America’s favorite institutions. Make no mistake about it, America is college crazy. Having a degree from Harvard or Stanford gives one eternal bragging rights, while a community or state college degree dooms one to a life of forever having to prove their intelligence. Those who will never attend MIT or Princeton will forever wish that they had, while Swarthmore and Amherst graduates will feel like some of the luckiest people on Earth.
It is no wonder then that people cling to one college team or another during March Madness season. It is a way for them to feel connected to a university which they may or may not have attended, and to become incorporated into something big and ideal.
And it also gives people a chance to forget about their prostates for a few weeks.
April 8, 2009 at 3:03 pm |
This sounds like a lot of griping from people who did not attend schools with nationally televised sporting events and have never been asked to join an NCAA bracket pool. The NCAA tournament is the most enjoyable sporting event of the year. If you can’t enjoy buzzer beaters, underdogs, and the singular joy of a single game elimination basketball tournament, then I don’t know what to say to you.
As for Tim(if that is your real name)’s rant about college athletics, I say what about those kids who would not be able to attend college without an athletic scholorship? Should we shut out those who were not lucky enough to have been born into a household with enough income or savings to send their kids to college? To assume that all kids who play college sports are only there on a fast track to the pro game is, well, wrong and stupid.
Besides, who the fuck wants to go to Swarthmore or Amherst anyway?
April 8, 2009 at 6:53 pm |
@ ANONYMOUS-
“Besides, who the fk wants to go to Swarthmore or Amherst anyway?”
Every backwoods, buck-toothed MSNBC-watching hick with a pair of antlers mounted on the hood of his beat-up old pickup wishes he or she did. The reason the freckle-faced, tobacco-chewing morons with brush cuts who work at Wal Mart want to kill everything is because they were denied a liberal arts education. Are they happy? No. Do they know why? Probably not. Living in the darkness, relying on the Bible for answers, voting for Republicans because they are the only stupid politicians…this is pure misery for them. At night they stare at the ceiling and wish they could have been born in a Blue State, to parents who had framed diplomas on their walls instead of taxidermy trophies. They dream of having book-learnin’, a foreign sedan instead of a shit Ford F-150 and a desire not to brandish guns and kill, kill, kill.
It is human nature to want peace, comfort, knowledge, wealth and good health. It’s animal nature to want the opposite. That is why, when people bash Swarthmore or Amherst, they are really just jealous they didn’t get to attend these types of schools.
As for buzzer beaters and single game elimination…go suck it you freak! Make sure to pluck your mustache hairs too you dumb bull dyke.
April 9, 2009 at 9:05 am |
I didn’t know you could major in Incoherent Ranting and Raving at Amherst and Swarthmore.
I learn something new every day…
April 9, 2009 at 9:49 pm |
WHATEVA!!! I DO WHAT I WANT!!!
April 15, 2009 at 1:49 am |
I win!!!
April 16, 2009 at 10:48 am |
Only if the contest is, “Blog Poster Who’s Parents Pay Their Rent Of The Year”. Congratulations.
By the way, you missed out on a rather spectacular tournament. Maybe next year Amherst and Swarthmore will make the tourney.