I Hate Duke - Short Story
- Greg Luti
- Apr 2
- 21 min read
The day of schedule changes and constant messages from parents was done for, and whatever else was to be done would be completed later, by a more energetic version of myself. I picked up my bag and headed towards the door. I thought of the previous conversations I have had with a few co-workers about the current March Madness tournament, and who they feel would make a run in it.
To my surprise, not a single person I asked knew anything about March Madness or what it was. They didn't know what a bracket was to be filled out. Why Cinderella is in the tournament, or what the Madness even means. They could barely name a school in the tournament. I didn't go into details with them once I learned none of them knew about it. I find that when I am speaking about a topic where I wish for an opinion from the listener, giving background information ruins the experience. I don't want to explain the entire thing to you; I want you to already come to the table with a take, I can then bounce off of, so we can have a back and forth.
Conversations are ruined with too much explaining, in the same way that jokes are ruined if explained. The more I learn about the world, the more I wonder where exactly explanations are even needed. For if you understand the topic, you don't need an explanation, and if you don't understand, then you only need experience or exposure to it, rather than an explanation.
Because I wish not to confuse or lose the reader, as I did with many of my co-workers, I will take a moment to explain what March Madness even is. Every March, there is a basketball tournament for the college basketball championship. 64 teams in the nation are in the tournament. Whoever wins this tournament is declared the winner of that year. The reason there is Madness in the tournament is that there are many times in the history of the tournament that the teams of less skill and from schools unknown to the masses win a game they are not supposed to win. David strikes Goliath in the history of the tournament, to use the more frequently referred to character, Cinderella. Why her? Because the winning by the unknown team is seen as unlikely or very similar to the story of Cinderella becoming a princess.
I like to fill out a bracket every year in order to have some fun with the tournament and keep myself engaged. I put down the teams I believe will win, and somehow I am always out of contention to win my pool, or where my bracket is submitted by the end of the first weekend.
