I M P R E S S I O N S

The Madness of March

by Richard C. Crepeau

It is March Madness in America.

Businesses, meanwhile, are promoting NCAA-related discounts for unrelated products (”March Madness Furniture Sale!” reads one local advertisement). Knowing that the NCAA isn’t fond of anyone using the term “March Madness’ without authorization, I expect the store owners will be served with a cease-and-desist order within the hour.

Has March Madness ever been madder or is it just me? Each year at this time I am amazed at the amount of media attention given to this multi-million dollar entertainment extravaganza produced by the NCAA, and I become increasingly perplexed  as to how any of this might relate to the educational mission of American colleges and universities.

I should add that I’m just as surprised by the credence given to the thousand games over the previous 10 days that come under the category of "Conference Tournaments." After playing anywhere from 18 to 22 regular season games to see who is the best team in a conference, all is rendered irrelevant by the staging of these tournaments. Tournament champions, not regular season champions, get an automatic invitation to the NCAA field of 65 teams. A good record during the regular season, of course, could lead to an at-large invitation, but for the many teams whose invitation is questionable, a good record does not ensure anything.

Conference tournaments are, in fact, relatively new — they became popular in the 1980s and 90s — but they have caught on like wildfire. Their purpose, however, is not that clear. While some rivalries, such as Duke vs. Maryland in the ACC (Atlantic Coast Conference), have become legendary and are worth seeing in a winner-take-all situation, the tournaments have just as often produced a random, undeserving winner who, despite a lackluster regular season, just got hot for four days in early March.

Why then a conference tournament? Money, Money and Money.

The conferences are amply rewarded for providing the much-needed television programming, and of course this keeps the conference offices running and pays the bloated salaries of conference bureaucrats whose main responsibility seems to be running the conference tournaments. In the meantime, the student part of the student-athlete recedes deeper into the mist. 

With conference tournaments and the three rounds of the NCAA tournament, the students who play hoops for the most successful teams will miss at least half their classes in the month of March. In addition, they will be distracted from academic life by their preoccupation with March Madness and left exhausted by practices, games, press demands and transcontinental travel schedules. All of this is justified by the same people who insist that a Division I football playoff would lead to the loss of too much class time.

It’s time to shut down the universities of America for the month of March so that students and student athletes can concentrate on what is truly important. If the television people and the NCAA can dictate starting times of games and order teams to travel across the continent, certainly they have the power to shut down the universities. They should do this in the name of education, claiming to be protectors of the student athletes, preventing them from losing too much class time and thus disrupting their education. Putting everyone on a one-month spring break would also appreciably enhance the economies of the Sun Belt states — or at least the ones with beaches. It would also add considerably to participation in the NCAA Balcony Diving Championships.

Or worse, it may not.

Enter the Pop Forum
Is there a method to March Madness?

Related Sites
The NCAA site features everything from past tournament statistics to interviews with "student athletes," as well as ads from corporate sponsors.
Robert Lipsyte of The New York Times is writing a series of articles that examines the role of college sports in American culture. Here’s Part II, on following the money.