My March Madness--so far

Let me tell you how my March Madness is going so far. I had Missouri going all the way to the championship game and I had Harvard beating Vanderbilt in the first round. I also had Duke advancing to the sweet sixteen. Even Duke’s coach, Saint Andrew Bobola, had no answer for that mighty Lehigh team that plays in the same conference as O’ Holy Cross. Talk about having no clue. Yours truly would get eaten alive in Las Vegas. I hope your brackets weren’t busted the same way mine were. By the way, what are we teaching these college kids anyway? If you don’t make the trip to the Final Four, there is the National Invitational Tournament or the best of the rest. If you don’t make the N.I.T. then there is the College Insider Tournament. I am not kidding. Everybody gets their little A.A.U. trophy so there are no hard feelings. When does the season end? Legendary UCLA coach John Wooden must be rolling over with all these alternative tournaments. How about the amount of INK on the basketball players’ bodies this generation? I thought the New Jersey Nets were the most read team until the road to the Final Four started. The INK/tattoos look like a painful process to me, but it sure beats the eyebrow piercing fad they had a few years ago. What are these college players going to do if they make the NBA? There won’t be any room left on their bodies to INK up. I don’t think the "Big Guy" wanted all that ink on us or He would have done it Himself. Am I getting that old that I don’t understand what stylin’ means?

Please correct me if I am wrong, but is the 2011-12 edition of winter sports in Central Mass. as bad as their showing at the DCU center this past St. Patrick’s Day? Not one team from Central Mass. qualified to play for the coveted state championship. I cannot remember when C-Mass didn’t have at least one team on the boys’ or girls’ side battling for the state crown. We were shutout. Please don’t count Tyngsboro as a C-Mass team. It is very disheartening that Western Mass. swept all three boys’ teams and all three girls’ teams in three divisions. I have been hearing so much about the AAU traveling teams and their successes with teams across the country that I thought C-Mass. teams could compete with teams in their own state. C-Mass. was eliminated from advancing to the state finals which, are you ready? Was played at the DCU Center in C-Mass.Imagine being the hostess with the leastess? Do we get a good host award for providing the DCU Center for all the State final games in basketball? I think all of us, including me, need a dose of reality. I like when the locals do well on any level and any sport. Maybe it was an off year for us folks in the heart of Massachusetts. The big question is: Are we advancing our student-athletes to the college level or are the kids burnt out from getting too many trophies on their journey from the midget league to the Clark Tournament? Less is more. Less games and trophies and more fundamentals. The games have to be fun. I am not sure if the kids are having fun anymore--