My kids have always loved brackets - pinewood derby brackets, youth baseball tournament brackets, brackets they created to figure out which Hot Wheels cars were fastest, and, of course, March Madness brackets. They’ve been filling out NCAA tournament brackets for as long as I can remember. Ben follows sports closely and generally has thoughts about which 12 seeds are going to beat which 5 seeds. Matt is a data person, and bracketology includes plenty of statistics. I tend to favor any school that has ever paid me (Notre Dame, Iowa) or that has hired my students (Purdue, Indiana). Even Mike spends time reviewing the odds. We’ve gone from printing out multiple brackets at hotel business centers on spring break to downloading the app and creating a family pool. This has become a tradition!
I come naturally by my love of March Madness. My brother Frank might be the most knowledgeable sports fan I know. (Not just NCAA or professional sports. Ask him about the history of high school sports in Missouri and Illinois, and prepare to be amazed.) It wasn’t easy to follow March Madness when we were growing up. We only had two local TV channels. I’m older than ESPN by about a decade. But we read the sports section, watched the games we could, and loved March.
After Frank and I left the house, Mom and Dad continued to follow March Madness. Mom was a huge Pat Summitt fan. In fact, at one point in time, she made the decision that she was only going to fill out the women’s bracket. She watched every women’s game that was televised. She was ahead of her time, and I wish she could see women’s basketball now.
Perhaps that’s another reason that I’m especially excited for March Madness. We’ve been Iowa women’s basketball season ticket holders for two years, and it has been one of my favorite things. Of course, it was amazing seeing Caitlin Clark break records last year, but also I love the culture that Lisa Bluder created and that Jan Jensen is carrying forward. The team plays like a team. The atmosphere in Carver Hawkeye is electric. Many of the fans are long-time season ticket holders who love basketball. The local retirement community brings a bus to the games, and I’m not the only one navigating the steps with a cane.
I realized that Iowa women’s basketball fans are serious at a game last year. During one of the early time outs, the announcer revealed that Sue Bird was in the crowd. The sold-out crowd leaped to its feet, applauding loudly. A little later in the game, the announcer introduced another celebrity in the crowd, Jason Sudeikis. The show Ted Lasso was at the height of its popularity. Jason Sudeikis might be the biggest star to come through Iowa City since Will and Harper stopped during their roadtrip. But the Iowa women’s basketball crowd has other priorities. We clapped politely for Sudeikis. After all, he’s no Sue Bird.
But my March bracketology is not limited to basketball. For years, I’ve also followed the Tournament of Books. A team from the Morning News selects novels from the previous year and slots them into a bracket. Each weekday in March, a judge provides commentary about the books pitted against each other and chooses a winner. Arbitrary? Of course. There is no scoreboard that reveals an indisputable winner. The commentariat often roundly disagrees with the decision. But in the end, we’ve all spent time appreciating the craft, articulating what moves us, and understanding that others may have different preferences.
What’s so compelling about bracketology? You may believe that bracketology is about separating the winners from the losers, until one single team (or book) emerges as the victor. Competition is at the heart of sports. And the competition doesn’t just happen on the courts. We enter bracket pools, debate different strategies for choosing the winers, and do our fair share of trash talking on the family chat.
But I also think that bracketology is about taking the time to slow down and appreciate the beauty of a deep 3, the hustle of a fast break, the magic that happens when a poet writes prose (I expect Kaveh Akbar to go deep in this year’s Tournament of Books), and the wonder when you see your experience on the page (thanks, Miranda July). We choose our winners by identifying what we love, on the court or on the page. It reminds me of a research technique called appreciative inquiry, a way of identifying the strengths in a team, a process, or an organization. It reminds me of my first qualitative research project, interviewing winners of St. Louis’s What’s Right with the Region award. What is good in the world? What do we cheer for?
We also cheer harder because we’ve got a dog in the fight. Right now, it may seem indulgent to focus on the outcome of a basketball game or a book battle. But I think that right now we need people who are engaged, not apathetic. We need people who take the time to articulate their position, even when they know they’ve got the votes to win. We need to feel a part of something bigger than ourselves. We need to savor the good. We need March.
Go Hawks! Go Martyr!!
You’re always teaching me something, like a new word I’d never used … “commentariat;” or something I’d never heard of but now need to follow with my spending too much time on the Internet … https://www.tournamentofbooks.com/ I look forward to what you show me next with “Who am I now?” Always a professional teacher, communicator & woman to be admired!
We need March and we need to march for something bigger than us.