NCAA gone wild!!!

You wouldn’t take an alcoholic on a bar crawl, then why would you let a child who exercises poor sportsmanship a NCAA bracket?!??

Despite not being very into sports my whole life, March Madness has always brought about a fun buzz that I’ve really gotten into. It helped going to a school like Indiana University during the Bobby Knight years. The fact that a team could have led the pack all season and have one major upset in one little game was major excitement growing up. Never in all my years catching the March Madness fever have I ever felt compelled to cry or mistreat people as a result of one of these upsets.

My eldest child, although making major strides on a daily basis, struggles tremendously with sportsmanship. He doesn’t lose at anything well, least of all when his teams lose. I have experienced two traumatic experiences with him in regards to this tournament in the last two years – the great Wichita State fiasco of 2014 and the destruction of Kentucky 2015. Both have left me pretty scarred when it comes to these glorious tournaments.

Of course this isn’t unique to only the NCAA tournaments. My “too cool for school” second grader cried (legitimate TEARS) upon my alma mater’s defeat in the recent Big Ten Tournament. And the only thing that actually got him out of bed the morning after the Super Bowl, was explaining that children who are unable to weather the consequences of the Super Bowl are also showing that they are not mature enough for the NCAA tournament. Suddenly he sprung up. Oh, brother!

I’m so glad to have a passionate kid. I would be disappointed if he were unable to be enthusiastic about something. As he gets older, his obsession with sports seems to be more manageable and his peers are becoming equally as involved. These are all wins in my mind. I just wish he were more able to handle the consequences of these games a little less intensely. I don’t have the heart to relive both the Wichita and Kentucky upsets.

The worst part is that the only thing truly sustaining him is the fact that this has got to be the year that the Cubs win the World Series. If I thought a little college tournament would get ugly, just imagine the Cubs losing yet again. Maybe we should take him to Sports Lovers Anonymous so he can have the support of people that truly understand him.