I'm A March Madness Widow

We had just sat down to breakfast at a quaint Connecticut inn last Monday morning, during a romantic midwinter getaway. The fireplace was roaring. Calming new age music piped softly, and our innkeeper was busy preparing us a small feast. Perfect, I thought. It was precisely the kind of escape I'd imagined when we planned the trip weeks ago.

Jon turned to me and smiled. "Can you hand me the sports section?" he asked.

 

I suppose I should have expected this: It is mid-March, the time when many a man's fantasy turns to college hoops. In the coming weeks, I knew from experience, there would be brackets to fill out and seemingly endless games to watch with hawk-like vigor. But that wasn't all.

 

For three weeks a year, Jon logs endless hours on the phone talking to friends, who discuss players as if they know them. Is J.R. Reynolds an old buddy from college I haven't met yet?, I'll wonder. Oh, right, no, he's a guard at UVa.

 

 

The scary thing is that basketball isn't his favorite sport. Not even close. We have two front pages from the Red Sox World Series victory framed in our living room, and a small painting of Fenway Park in the bedroom. We are proud owners of baseball bobble head dolls and a less popular item called a CelebriDuck in the shape of Nomar Garciaparra. (The Dodgers first baseman, if you must know.)

 

Still, there's a special intensity that surrounds March Madness. It's not a tournament; it's a way of life for weeks. And when I gripe, Jon reminds me how much time and energy I waste, say, knitting. Thank God. In March, I have no choice but to become one with my needles.

 

In fairness, I don't completely hate basketball. I attended the University of Maryland and catch their games whenever I can. In college, I even once slept out overnight for tickets to their games, and, since then, I've filled out a bracket or two, pretty much blindly filling in names. "The University of Minnesota's mascot is the Golden Gopher," I'd think to myself. "I like gophers."