March Money Madness

March, 2004 and beyond

NCAA Basketball

March Money Madness

As a basketball fan, this is a good time of year -- March madness -- when NCAA college basketball kicks into high gear. Sixtyfour teams play off against one another in pressure-packed nationally televised games to see who'll be # 1. You've got the Big East and the ACC and the Big Tin or the Big Ten whoever you're talking to, and the Pac 10 and Sports Center and WFAN and sports talk radio and local newspapers with centerfold pullouts and office pools. Enough basketball to go around for everyone. A billion dollar industry.

Editors Note: although this article was written in 2004, it applies for any year. For 2005, please substitute Charlie Villanueva for Emeka Okafor, Sean May for Jarrett Jack, Joey Graham for BJ Elder, and Marcus Williams for Tony Allen below.

The only billion dollar industry where the workers -- in this case the players themselves -- get paid absolutely nothing. Nothing.

Nothing but the horseshit scholarships they can't really use to take normal classes because they're playing basketball and traveling 60 hours a week.

But god help them if they fuck up in a game with their school's name on the line, they'll be brandished a loser by their town and the alumni and the whole nation for the rest of their basketball playing life.

So come on Emeka Okafor and Jarrett Jack and BJ Elder and Tony Allen, entertain us. And don't you dare think of leaving college early or skipping it entirely to go to the NBA you loser; you're too young to play professional ball and too stupid to cash in now and go to school later. And don't you dare take a t-shirt from an alumnus, or borrow someone's Ford Explorer to run errands. There's too many people making millions of dollars off of your ass.

Let the games begin. Go Connecticut !

--LouV

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