NCAA Bracket 2011: Spring's Maddening Sickness of College Basketball

With swift and unapologetic fury, the same sickness attacks me every March. 

Far worse than any cold, virus or flu, this early spring malaise renders me powerless—devouring my energy, crippling my logical thinking and negating any thought of normality in my life for nearly 30 days.

This week, this same invisible power has wielded its ugly head and smitten me once again.

In the past, family, friends and colleagues have pleaded with me to seek a cure for the insanity this unseen force wreaks in my life. Reluctantly, I followed their beckoning calls and sought professional care from the finest in their fields. Although eager to help, experts offered little hope for a recovery, while others lamented that I just didn’t want to be cured.

Neurologists from Johns Hopkins Medical Center diagnosed severe—but not terminal—brain abnormalities. Psychiatrists and sociologists from UC Berkeley detected extreme shifts in emotion, coupled with rabid antisocial behavior. Even celebrated theologians from the Vatican speculated about some overpowering spirit requiring an exorcism.

However, two budding Bracketologists from Bloomington, IN diagnosed my condition immediately. These pimply faced, 15-year-olds instantly recognized my symptoms and pinpointed my acute abnormality. Why? Because they, too, experience the same condition every spring.

Their revelation mystified medical experts and stupefied behavioral scientists and theologians alike, but their simple findings brought me a major sigh of relief. Peace descended upon me, soothing my being to its core.

I now know what slays me every spring, and I relish the sickness! Once again, spring’s Maddening Sickness, otherwise known as March Madness, has enveloped me, and boy, have I caught another baaad case!

But instead of prescribing drugs, recommending group therapy sessions or offering up endless prayers, these kids from Indiana told me to have fun, enjoy the disease and be grateful I was chosen to endure the illness!

More than that, these high schoolers recommended that I by no means attempt to hasten my recovery. They confidently assured me the malady would miraculously disappear by midnight EST the first Monday in April...as it faithfully does every year. 

As further proof of their diagnosis, these same pubescent basketball junkies claimed my condition was no different than that of thousands of others. These boys shared similar stories of other Bracketologists (as they liked to call themselves) beset by strikingly similar springtime conditions.

As empirical proof, they cited cases popping up in Durham, NC; Lexington, KY; Spokane, WA; Lawrence, KS; and northeastern cities like Pittsburgh, Syracuse and Philly. Again this year, major hot spots for the disease were in every conceivable socio-economically-geographically-racially-educationally unbiased demographic in the country...well, except Chapel Hill, NC and Westwood, CA.

Growing in intensity, the sickness is spreading not only across the USA, but around the globe as well, where fans have proper satellite and Internet access. Roundball experts predict it’ll soon become a worldwide epidemic, challenging likes of the CDC and even the International Red Cross.

March Madness has once again gripped me, pulsating uncontrollably through my veins. Symptoms like sleep deprivation, bouts of euphoria, irrational guttural screams and obsessive-compulsive behavior are overtaking me. I’ll soon be uttering an endless array of scores, stats, pre-game analysis and RPI ratings. I’ll even debate conference strength of schedules and prognosticate regional brackets.   

Yes, like a zombie I’ll hypnotically trudge through mid-March and into early April, never parting with the remote. I’ll divide my time between the big LCD screen on my TV, the smaller LCD on my WiFi notebook computer and the even smaller LCD screen on my Blackberry.

Forget about regular, normal relationships too. Like some codependent alien, I’m only able to communicate coherently with others sharing the same physical condition and inane vocabulary. Sweating profusely and biting my nails incessantly, I’ll be texting and mumbling phrases like Sweet 16, Another Cinderella Advances, Buzzer-Beater, Raining Threes, Diaper Dandy, Box Out, Shoot Out the Lights and—my personal favorite—Double Overtime Barn Burner!

Wow! What a sickness! I say, bring it on me every March! Give me a double dose—and don’t ever try to cure me. Please don’t stop the Madness, don’t ever stop the Madness!

Thank you, young men from Bloomington, Indiana, for diagnosing my condition. I just love this disease!

Straight talk. No static!

MIKE—thee American Made Voice on Sports!

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