Notes and adventures from the life of a freelance journalist.

Forget the brackets. Forget them all.

My brackets were ruined by day one, like most people’s. Day two gave me a little hope; like most people, I got more right. But now I don’t care anymore. No. 9 Northern Iowa just beat No. 1 Kansas – as in, the overwhelming favorite to win the national championship – by two points. They could have won by one; they could have won by twenty. Most nights, they would have lost by twenty. But tonight, they won by two.

Never will anybody truly believe that No Iowa is better than Kansas. Have you looked at this team? They’ve got Curly and a red-headed Wolverine on the bench. They have four white guys on the floor against….Kansas. They’ve got guys pulling threes with 25 seconds left and the lead. None of that should be construed as insult – it’s just….it’s Kansas. You don’t expect redheaded four white guys to beat the Bill Self-coached monsters that are the Jayhawks.

As I type this it’s 67-64 No Iowa with 6.2 seconds left. Kansas just called a timeout. And between a serious deprivation of sleep and a Michelob Ultra or two, I’m feeling inspired. It’s been a long time since sports have inspired me. I mean, I’m writing a book about a Harlem Globetrotter and he lived on of the most inspiring and unbelievable stories one could ever live. So that inspires me some. But there’s something draining about engrossing yourself in someone else’s life, too. So yeah, I don’t find a ton of inspiration in sports these days. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because I’m all old and grown up now, but I’m pretty sure it’s just a phase.

But this, this bracket-destroying start to the NCAA tournament, has reminded me why sports remain inspiring.

It’s become unbelievably commercialized, the NCAA tournament. It’s a bittersweet affair, but like with most things in life, it has its pros and cons. On one hand, it’s a little gross, the idea of rich people getting richer by capitalizing on the appeal that these young, passionate players still have to people. People love drama, and – Kansas just lost 69-67, and people are crying, both in joy and in agony – there’s nothing more dramatic than young men’s dreams on the line. That’s why the camera stays on devastated Kansas senior Mario Little. Who videos a 22-year-old in tears? Television people do. It’s dramatic, and drama draws ratings.

But to us – and by “us” I do mean college athletes; for some reason something in my heart still feels somewhat connected, and I suppose I should, because I just graduated a year ago and still some days quite ache for the game – this is more than ratings. So much more. Maybe the white collars capitalize on our passion, but passion and drive are our currency. We want money, yeah, and we’d like to make it playing this game, and some of us had our education funded by this game, but more than that, we just want to win.

Forget the brackets. I’m inspired again. It’s painful to me, Kansas’ tremendous tumble. The falling of the mighty is never wholly inspiring, no matter who does the slaying. The mighty are the mighty; this is why we love them.

Meanwhile, now BYU is leading Kansas State 10-0 and Wake Forest leads Kentucky 4-0.

Forget the bracks. Bring on the madness. This is March. This, I now remember, is why I love sports.

UPDATE (3/20/2010 at 10:16 p.m.):

In retrospect – that beautiful thing that helps us see things oh so clearly – I see that I am, surprise surprise, wrong. It’s like I’m human or something.

A sport has inspired me much lately. Triathlon. I almost offended myself, reading back over that blog. So now I’m explaining some things….to myself, apparently.

For the past 70 days or so I’ve been training for a triathlon with some truly inspiring people. Plus, just this past week, I interviewed a triathlete who became the first person ever to compete in, then complete, an Ironman after a double lung transplant. I’d begun writing a blog about him. He’d inspired me.

So when I say that sports have not inspired me in awhile, I was quite wrong. Well, perhaps not wrong, but definitely inaccurate. Which I guess is the same thing as wrong, after all.

Triathlon just seems different to me. Something about it feels pure. Something about it is quietly and subtly and inherently yet so undeniably evocative. I’ve developed such an appreciation for triathletes – for all competitive endurance athletes, really – over the past few months, and it’s because I have been compelled to become a better competitive endurance athlete myself because of them.

So I’ve been inspired. Only in different ways by different people. The sports are so different, triathlon and basketball, but they are, technically sports, after all, right?

I might have just fallen in love with sports all over again.