March Madness

Josh Lindenstein

Forgive me, ghost of Vince Lombardi, for what I am about to assert. ...

The NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament has the Super Bowl beat as the best sporting event in America.

Sure, I live for that most glorious of football Sundays just like every other true fan. It's become a slice of Americana — unfortunately, largely so for the wrong reasons.

One-gazillion viewers worldwide? Big deal. What percentage of those actually cares about the game? Just think about the Super Bowl parties you've been to, and try to remember the last one where you didn't get shushed 27 times — during the dad-gum commercials!

Day-after water cooler talk? Unless Elway risked his aging limbs helicoptering through the air toward his first title, it's all about who showed what at halftime and whether the Budweiser horses out-performed the Slowskys.

March Madness is all about the games.

Water-cooler talk? Sorry. Everyone's gathered around the office television instead, agonizing over the IPFW Mastodons' bracket-busting buzzer-beater vs. Kansas.

Yeah, the passion of many who watch is driven by the 10 bucks they likely donated to the office pool. But it's also true that for three weeks the tourney turns otherwise non-fans into research-frenzied stat geeks who think they've found the perfect formula for filling out their bracket and are consumed not by consumerism but by what's happening on the court.

That's not even to mention the purity of 19-year-olds pouring their souls into one more defensive stop and 3-point shooting clinics put on by a senior from Nowhere State.

And, seriously, has Trent Dilfer saying, "I'm going to Disneyland," ever given you the same goose bumps as "One Shining Moment?"

Super Bowl

Zak Brown

For one glorious day, Americans unite under football, guacamole, beer and beer commercials.

The Super Bowl is an American holiday, celebrating the nation's favorite sport. The NCAA Tournament is great for its upsets and Cinderella stories, but the Super Bowl is about more than just the sport being played.

It's about the parties, attended by people who never watch football and don't know the difference between a linebacker or a lineman. It's more of a social event than a game. It's hard to even watch the game at the parties because there's more going on than what's on TV.

It's about the commercials, which have become almost as big of a deal as the game. Peyton Manning finally won a title this year, yet more people were talking on Monday about that one beer commercial where the guy gets hit in the head with a rock.

For all its upsets and excitement, it's easy for the NCAA Tournament to lose steam between the first weekend and the Final Four. Most brackets are blown to bits by the time you're reading this, and Billy Packer has usually ticked off the majority of people by the Elite Eight. Sometimes he does it before then.

If it was just about the sports, well, the Super Bowl doesn't really measure up. There have certainly been some Sunday stinkers over the years. And it's hard to top all-day basketball, especially if you come down with a wicked cold on the first Thursday and Friday of the tournament and can't go to work. Of course, that's only because you don't want to risk infecting your co-workers.

But it's not just about the sports. The Super Bowl transcends sport. It has its own day, after all. And, above all, it's guacamole's finest moment of the year.