My weekend starts today. It’s packed with activities and commitments and time with family and friends. What could be better.

And after many hours of basketball watching we will be down to the Sweet 16 on Sunday night. Brackets will be busted. I will be tired as hell. I may have put on a few pounds. I probably only post 2x a day between now and Sunday and they may be shorter than my normal rants.

Hey, I got a few vices left and watching March Madness is one of them.

Like many, my brackets are filled out. It used to be people would just do one. And it was just for fun when I started doing them. Then pools started at the jobs or in families. Then some started doing more than one as gambling became more associated with it. The term “Bracket of Integrity” was born to show your friends if you were betting head to head.

The tournament is still a great thing. College sports on the other hand is in trouble. Not that the Pro’s aren’t headed for issues also. Gambling will be one of the many death blows of sports. Players, refs or team officials or owners are going to get CAUGHT. And when they do it’s going to blow the trust, like there is any in the world of gambling to begin with. The only rule is greed.

The transfer portal on top of the one and dones are killing College sports. It may have killed it in it’s first few years. And of course money. The days of a group of 18 year olds entering college together and winning a national championship 4 years later together like the 2002 Maryland Terps are HISTORY.

The days of your favorite superstars like a Cal Ripkin or Derek Jeter staying with the team they started with are pretty much in the past. Yes it still happens but its the exception now to what used to be more of a rule.

It’s BULLSHIT and it’s causing me to not enjoy what is a GAME. Well it used to be a game, now its big business. All of it. Way down deep into high schools and even middle schools I bet.

I haven’t even touched some of the other sports that are dead to me. Gold for instance. I’ll never watch another stroke on TV. I might play it once in a great while but no more. NASCAR is another. When they got away from production cars years ago I lost some interest and when Earnharts left it I was out.

Pro Football keeps doing things to lose me and the emphasis on gambling has me watching much less.

I still enjoy the game itself. But what some do to make it something else diminishes it. Sorry, I didn’t mean to do a long rant on sports. It’s just that something so beautiful has been so tarnished.

Random Thoughts of the Day

• What the hell is going on? It’s below-freezing outside this morning. Someone get Mother Nature on the phone right now and file a complaint.
• I need to be careful starting the day off with too much inspirational Rock and Roll.
• I was going to wish that everyone could enjoy the beauty and peacefulness of the sunrise. Then I remembered if everyone was up it wouldn’t be peaceful.
• There should be a video of the 3 of us friends shopping for the day’s food and drink supplies for watching 12 hours of basketball for a group of maybe 8-10. It’s got to be comical. I know we laugh a lot and get lost with 3 different baskets.