BURGER SCOOT

On weekdays, I used to set my alarm for the last minute, do my bathroom stuff, get dressed, glance at the morning paper, and then walk briskly to the bus stop.

Way back in the 90s, when I worked in a warehouse filled with men who loved basketball every March, I would have to listen to the staff go on and on about March Madness and their brackets.

One morning, while I was glancing at the paper halfway out the door, I noticed an image of a basketball player wearing a jersey with the word “Duke.”

“I guess that’s a March Madness team,” I said to myself; at work, the staff was working on their brackets, and I got so frustrated being left out of this—madness—I just blurted out, “What’s the point with all this bracket shit; Duke is going to win, so who cares about the other teams?”

That tournament, Duke went all the way, and from that point on, I always fill out my brackets, starting with Duke in the middle, then filling out the other teams back to the beginning.

I didn’t follow the women until I discovered Caitlin Clark of Iowa; I still don’t follow the WNCAA, but I now watch the WNBA and Caitlin Clark—she’s more exciting than anything on my Men’s NCAA brackets, Duke included!