Rant #1,870: School Is Out

Was your bracket busted?

This is all I am hearing right now, and it all has to do with the NCAA basketball tournament to see what team wins the national championship.

It is all about "March Madness," and quite frankly, anybody who participates in this nonsense is mad, has lost their minds, and need a hobby.

The problem is that there are millions of people who are doing this, and I guess I am in the minority here in my thinking.

But you know what? I have to stand up for what I think is right, and betting on kids as young as 17 to win a championship is wrong, wrong, wrong.

These are kids. The focus is on winning, it is not on anything to do with the schools they are representing, which the last time I looked, were educational institutions.

That's right. They are places people go to learn things, not to necessarily play basketball.

Look, the whole system is wrong, period, but the NCAA gets away with it because they are the behemoth in the room. They can basically do anything they want, are just about self policed, and really, does this organization exist for the betterment of these kids?

No, it all boils down to greed, and anyone who does not admit that is a fool.

Whether basketball or football--the two biggest college sports overseen by this group--it is a money issue, with millions spread around all over the place related to the respective sports' championship tournaments.

Yes, the NCAA does police itself, and occasionally finds schools in violation of their code of standards, a group of rules that is so thin that it is regularly skirted.

But to me, betting money on kids to win a tournament is just such a wrong thing to do.

And it is openly played out across all media--heck, President Obama had his own bracket which he proudly hailed every year he was in office,

This is not political what I am saying here, but President Trump admitted he is not a fan of college basketball, so he declined to publicize his own presidential bracket.

Good of him, and I wish it filtered down to others who should know better.

But it hasn't, and it won't.

CBS, the station that has the most money invested in this tournament, has their news anchors talk about this as much as they talk about the real news of the day.

Advertisers grapple for commercial time on these broadcasts, and there are numerous commercial sponsors involved in promoting the tournament.

And yes, the general public buys into this as they buy into other things that they should really stay away from.

Again, we should all know better. These are kids. They are not professionals. They are supposedly in college to get an education.

For every college basketball player who eventually moves onto the pros, there are probably at least a 1,000 who don't, and not only don't many of them not have the skills to play a higher level of basketball, they don't have the educational skills to make it in life.

Yes, these are arguments that have gone on for decades, but I only bring it up again because the hype surrounding this tournament this year is worse than I can ever remember it.

And now that your bracket is probably busted, think about what you have been involved with, who you have been betting on.

Would you want your kid to have so much pressure put on his or her shoulders at such a young age?

Maybe next year, the nation will come to its senses, but somehow, I doubt it.