Written by Jeff Morgan
Over the next five weeks, if you happen to have your TV on CBS, you will hear the anthem for the greatest time of the year, “March Madness,” playing like a reminder that buzzes your BlackBerry.
As common as the ESPN jingle, you will hear the tune over and over and over and over as CBS broadcaster Jim Nantz announces to the world about the “Road to the Final Four.”
As a basketball coach and everyday sports fan, this is by far the greatest time of the year for me.
The next five weeks for me and several other millions might as well be an off month when it comes to production time at the office.
With all the basketball games that will be on every day, filling out your brackets, making your tournament selections and following all the action, in most offices around the country, March truly is a month of Madness.
This month really is hard to beat if you are a sports fan. College football should take some pointers from a true tournament format where anything can happen, where “Cinderella” will win some games and there will always be a No.12 seed to beat a No. 5 seed (for all of you who will fill out your brackets).
For example, in our family pool one year, as I was read- ing the names of the teams so my 4-year-old daughterEmma could make her picks, she chose “Siena University” because she had a friend named “Siena.”
Before I could even ask if that is really who she wanted to pick, she assured me that was going to be her pick to the Final Four. She made the rest of us look silly as Siena made a run to the Sweet 16.
With all the passion and energy that surround the Road to the Final Four, it’s hard not to love the month of March. Here’s hoping for another run through the tournament by at least one Butler, George Mason or Siena and three others that always make the atmosphere electric like Duke, North Carolina, Kansas or an Ohio State. Sorry Razorback fans, no “whoo-pig-sooie” this year.
Of course, as a basketball coach,a member of the National Association of Basketball Coaches and a member of the NABC Congress, I will be in Houston for the Final Four.
And of course, it will be all business,as we have our national convention, coaches’ meetings and clinics. I know, I know, tough job, but someone has to do it! Here’s to the month of March and production going way down in offices all across the country as we travel “The Road to the Final Four.”
