I hate March. I didn't always. I used to love the month that ushered in spring, the idea of renewal and the hope a new season brings.
But now I hate March. And I hate it for one reason.
Brackets.
They've taken over and they turn everyone into bracket zombies.
I hate my office bracket and all the pressure that comes to join in.
"Get your brackets in! Are you brackets in? Don't forget about those brackets!"
But mostly I hate your bracket.
I hate hearing about how an underdog wrecked your bracket because it upset the No. 2 seed (insert ACC school here) you had in the final.
I hate hearing about how smart you were to pick Little Engine State to upset (insert ACC school here) to get all the way to Sweet 16.
About your big wins. About how you filled out 20 brackets and you're still alive in the bracket your brother runs, but are pretty much toast in the bracket your dentist runs.
Let me break it to everyone out there who has filled out a bracket this year: No. One. Cares.
You see, brackets are like kids. You only care about them if they're yours. I don't want to hear how you have Iowa as a 10 seed going to the Final Four any more than I want to hear about how well a kid I've never met is doing in an advanced finger-puppetry class.
Of course, it wasn't always like this. And, predictably, it's a sports writer's fault.
March Madness wasn't really even a thing until longtime CBS broadcaster Brent Musburger, a former Chicago sports writer, popularized the term when he used it during the 1982 NCAA Tournament.
"Let's be perfectly honest," Musburger said on the Rich Eisen Show in 2016. "I did not create it. I took it to the college tournament. And here's how it happened. There was an auto dealer in Chicago when I worked locally at [WBBM] and he called the state high school tournament in Illinois 'March Madness.' ... So I used it with the high school tournament. I thought it was clever, well done."
And brackets weren't always a thing, either. In the 1980s, I remember just watching the tournament for the sheer enjoyment of the games. I grew up in California, so the tournament had an all-day carnival feel to it with games being played at all hours.
I was 19 during my first semester on my college newspaper. I'll never forget walking into our usually quiet offices and being greeted with the staccato pitch of whistles and squeaking sneakers coming from televisions propped around the sports department. There was a wonderful communal feel to the experience. The tournament turned the sports department into an electronic hearth where everyone gathered.
And absolutely no one talked about their brackets. As I recall, the most important purpose the tournament served back then at the school newspaper was for me to appear smart to a pretty copy editor who might wander over and ask who was playing.
"Yes, these are the Saint Louis Billikens. Interesting thing about the Billikens: No one knows what a Billiken is. And did you know there's an arch in St. Louis?"
Smooth, right?
Saint Louis is in the tournament again this year. The Billikens are a 13th seed in the East and take on fourth seed Virginia Tech on Friday night in San Jose, Calif. I'll probably watch. I'll root for a great game filled with all the emotion the college game brings.
And I promise you I will thoroughly enjoy the entire tournament. Because no matter what happens, my bracket won't be ruined and no one will have to hear about it.
Sports on 03/21/2019