March Madness

I love this time of year, when March Madness is upon us. Let's be honest. I'm not a huge sports nut. I mean, I LOVE playing sports, but I don't really care that much about watching them. I'm happy to watch a game...baseball, basketball, football, whatever...but I don't make an effort to do it. If someone else is watching, I'll join in. In all reality, my sports-watching days have been numbered since being married to Miles. He doesn't care about sports, so we don't watch them. So why, you might be asking yourself, would I care about March Madness? Because it's bracket time!

Every year for at least the past 10 years (I can't remember how long this has been going on) my Dad likes to do some friendly "betting" with my siblings and me. He always has us fill out a bracket and then pays us for correct guessing. Actually, there's really no betting involved. Mostly we just get to guess and get paid if we're right! Pretty awesome, huh? In years past, he would pay us a certain amount for each round (ie; 10 cents for each correct guess in the first round, 25 cents for the second round, 50 cents for the third round and so on...increasing to 100 dollars for the championship round). In the past few years he's changed the game. Now, we have to pick a winner from the beginning. Then we wait until the sweet sixteen and pick winners from there to the end. For the championship game you can stay with your same winner or cut your loses and pick a different team. You get more money if you guessed right from the beginning than from the sweet sixteen. The only caveat is that we have to beat my Dad and do better than he did with his bracket.

This year was especially fun with BYU being in the mix, and actually having a shot at making it past the first round. I picked them to beat Florida, mostly out of loyalty. I didn't really think they would, but thought I should stay true to them. To their credit, it was a smokin' hot, close game going into overtime. Sadly, they lost their steam and Florida won by 9. But the Cougs had a good run and it was fun to see them have such a great season.

We'll see how the rest of my bracket plays out. I originally picked Ohio State to win, but cut my loses and picked Kansas from the sweet sixteen. Either way, I'm on track to beat my Dad since both his picks (Duke and Pittsburgh) are out. But it's not about the money (even though that's nice). It's just a fun way to stay connected with my Dad who has been a sports nut his whole life and devoted so many hours to being involved in all of his kids' teams and sporting events. It's pretty awesome...and I know you're jealous. ;)