Underrated Day 4 – NCAA Tournament

First of all, a special fuck you to Jericho once again for his stupid ‘let’s do a theme week’ idea. Talk about a pain in the ass. It’s the first day of the NCAA tournament, let’s talk about who has the hottest cheerleaders (so far I’m thinking Arizona), let’s remember Pittsnogle, let’s talk about where we were when Webber called that fateful timeout (at Dave’s house, making fun of our friend Mike who LOVED that Michigan squad). But no, it’s ‘theme’ week so let’s try to squeeze a great post idea into something that can be called ‘underrated.’ It’s about as comfortable as the 1992 towel boy for UNLV was after close games. Not cool Jericho, not cool at all.

So, racking my brain, I came up with the following thought. There was a time in our lives when we could sit in front of a TV for the first two rounds of the tournament (Thursday and Friday) and do nothing but watch college basketball. And everything in this world was perfect. In high school we would all go over to the kid’s house whose parents weren’t home. We’d probably order a pizza. Find the dad’s stack of porn. Get hopped up on orange soda and watch basketball until our eyes were about to pop out. In college, we didn’t have to do any sneaking around. The pizza and porn was still there, the orange soda turned to Keystone Ice and our eyes were popping out from things besides staring at the TV. But we were free to watch those games however and whenever we chose to. This my friends was an underrated time in our lives. (see the connection? Sorta? Just go with it.)

Today, we hide in conference rooms with select co-workers and gather around a 10” monitor hoping our connection doesn’t cut out at a critical point during the game. We watch without the sound because we don’t want the dumb chicks around us to realize we’re not staring at our computer and working…we’re watching games for fuck’s sake. When it’s a big moment we have to celebrate in complete silence. We plan meetings around games. We make a joke on a conference call about wishing we were seeing the 6 and 11 matchup…1/4 of the people on the call can relate. We exchange updates with other dudes in the hallway who also 'get-it'. We go to longer lunches, eat shitty food and for a few brief moments feel like we were 18 again, watching the games from the comfort of our own couch. But then the bar starts to empty out a bit, it’s 1:30pm, people are returning to their cubicles and we’re left with nothing but a bill to pay for shitty buffalo wings and longing for simpler times.

Am I being a bit melodramatic? Perhaps. But what I wouldn’t give to be back at my friend’s house right now watching Adam Jacobson and Mark Boelter and Walsh Jordan and Dell Demps and Corey Anders (fuck he was so good) and hell, even little Scooter Thompson. Those days were underrated. No doubt about it.