The last time I was so jacked that I couldn’t sleep on the night of
December 24th was the year I found a Nintendo (the original) under the tree. My boy down the street got one and Christmas night was a halcyon combination of Super Mario and Duck Hunt interspersed with periodic images of the Jeep/Eagle Aloha Bowl. Coincidentally, this was also the same Christmas season when the Nintendo-produced Fred Savage vehicle The Wizard was released in theatres.
That glorious season of yuletide joy was more than sixteen years ago. The latest incarnation of Nintendo has taken the role of RC Cola to Xbox’s Coke, that buddy down the street is selling pizza ovens in Niagara Falls and Savage has blossomed into an A-list Hollywood powerhouse.
Childhood is gone, and while most of us still have a soft spot for the holidays, many of us have searched for another day to try and re-capture the unrestrained ecstasy that Christmas morning used to bring. And after minimal thought, I have realized that only one day applies – the first Thursday of the NCAA tournament.
Go ahead – just try and sleep Wednesday night with that CBS NCAA Basketball theme pounding in your head. Attempt to think rationally while looking at a bracket, or any sort of chart or bar graph for that matter. Try and tell yourself that Clark Kellogg isn’t a sweet handle. It can’t be done. At least by the Friday, you have one day under your belt and you know what you’re dealing with. By then you’ve probably felt goose bumps at least once, seen two buzzer-beaters and heard eight or nine ornery observations from Billy Packer.
What makes the Thursday so powerful is it’s a weekday. Those with brains book the day off in October. It’s a throwback to youth, a chance to skip work for sports. I mean how often does a quadruple-header with live look-ins occur during hours reserved for The Bold and the Beautiful? If you’re in college you may well be on spring break, and if you do have class there’s a fairly good chance that you wouldn’t be going anyway. And God help white beer drinkers if Day One of the tournament falls on St.Patrick’s Day as it did last year.
My own preparations for the day are simple. March 16 having been booked off for five months already, I stock up on beer and food and don my Sherman Douglas Syracuse jersey. I tell my girlfriend I’m incapacitated for 24 hours. My roommate, not a smart guy per se, is safely ensconced at work; his girlfriend, who inexplicably has a key to my house, neutralized by a CIA-style operation where the key was secretly shaved down with a file.
Now I’m ready to be festive. Ready to revel in the frenzied hoop orgy that is March Madness. Sure there’s no Santa Claus, but you can take comfort in the fact that there would be if Rick Majerus was still coaching. To directly quote Dan Bonner as Seton Hall and Wichita State tipped off on Thursday, “Happy NCAA Tournament”.
