I Love the Dance but Hate My Date

And by date I mean the sudden "college basketball fan."

Before I start to rant, let me acknowledge that I love the NCAA Tournament and spend far too much time during the month of March watching games and dissecting matchups.  What I don't allow myself is to annoy the hell out of my co-workers or friends that I am watching the game with because one of my Final Four or Cinderella teams is playing.

There is nothing I enjoy more than sitting alone or with only a small amount of friends during the tournament and calmly watching a game; nobody screaming at the television about two teams they really don't care about in the realm of things, they just happen to care about because they have a given team going far in their office pool.  Why can't people just watch a game like a regular fan and not hoot and holler about two teams they will forget about in a week or so?  I just don't understand how five bucks or whatever the entry fee to people's pool is has such an effect on how they watch games.

Save your fandom for a team you actually care about.  I don't have a problem with going out to a bar with some friends to watch random games during the season, because all the college basketball fans who are experts in March are hidden away during the conference seasons in the hardest months of winter.  I hate being around people who really have no actual care about the games nor an interest in the tournament beyond their office pool bracket.

Working at The Score, I am fortunate enough to be able to sit and watch a game with co-workers and not have someone yelling at the screen about two teams they don't give a darn about.  My other job does not so much offer that. Instead we have plenty of access to all the games and everyone around becomes just the "expert" who makes me as nuts as anything else in sports.  Everyone has a team that they know is going to be an upset pick early on but will tell you how if just a few things were different they would have been right after a 15-point beat down.

I enjoy watching the games by myself or in the presence of people who don't just yell at the top of their lungs because they can.  I lived on the same floor as plenty of those people in college and have plenty of friends who for some reason feel the need to act the same way.  Does it make them bad people?  No, it just makes them annoying and people that I don't enjoy watching the NCAA Tournament or sports with in general.

How hard is it to watch a game as a civilized human being?  In a week these people are going to forget all about their Cinderella who ended up being just a dumb pick and they will carry on perfectly fine with their everyday lives.  Hell, 10 minutes after the game they will be perfectly okay and not feel the same way they would have felt if a team they were actually a fan of lost a big game.

You and I are stuck with people like this because the NCAA Tournament won't be going away anytime soon, nor will the office pool.  I don't know how to get rid of these people or how to get through to them.  I find that the strong majority of them are people who I don't agree with much in life about, let alone sports.

I don't mind that they watch the games or take a sudden interest in the tournament. I'm not trying to keep anyone from enjoying college basketball on its grandest stage.  What I do mind is that these people make themselves into something they are not just to try and fit in with a different crowd around the workplace.  You going berserk over a close call in your bracket makes absolutely no sense to me.  Why do you find such a need to show your emotion for teams you won't care about in a matter of days?

If you are stuck around these kind of people at work then I feel sorry for you.  At my "other job" these kind of fans seemingly come out of the walls, and it drives me nuts.  They're the same people who can't focus on Sunday because they have to check their fantasy football teams and can't watch a playoff football game because it has nothing to do with their fantasy teams.  If you are this person, learn how to just simply watch a game and enjoy it for what it's worth, don't bother me by yelling and screaming over the "madness" in the process.