thoughts of fun-filled madness

shared by Marlo R. Beall, her sister

My sisters and I have been sports fans our whole lives, primarily because our dad brought us to A's games since we were little. But in college, I was introduced to a new dimension of sports fan-dom in the form of March Madness. My own initial introduction was an exciting one, celebrating in Westwood with fellow Bruins after UCLA won the 1995 NCAA Men's Basketball Championship. However, it would be a couple more years until I filled out my first bracket.

Since we lived together while she was at UCLA, Cindy joined me and Andrew in our excitement when March Madness came around. Being from Kansas, Andrew has been a fan of the Jayhawks his whole life. So Cindy and I were destined to become KU fans as well. Every year, we would have our own apartment bracket challenge, with one or two other friends joining us. We would each complete our own bracket before the tournament began, and keep track of the game results on one of the walls in the apartment, using the large bracket we would get from the Daily Bruin.

In 2003, rather than using the one from the newspaper, Cyn decided that she wanted to make her own bracket for the wall. So she got out a copy of the bracket, a large piece of paper (I think from one of those easel-sized presentation pads), some colored markers, and a ruler. And that's how we kept track that year. I still have that bracket somewhere, although I don't recall whether we had a chance to fill in the results from all the games.

The last couple of years, we've been conducting our bracket challenge online, with our sisters, husbands, daughters and friends. We all have differing levels of interest and knowledge of teams, using methods like team colors, school location, mascots, or whether the school has a "V" in its name as criteria to choose who moves on in the tournament. But win or lose, it's all fun, it's often madness, and it's yet another special, annual event that makes me think of Cyn.