NCAA Basketball Brackets

There comes a day when a manopause male realizes he is no longer an athlete (if, in fact, he ever was one to begin with) but must live vicariously through the exploits of the young.  This happens each year during the NCAA basketball tournament, when men of all ages fall under the delusion that they can make a difference to their teams and that, if they only cheer more loudly or buy more beer they will somehow influence the outcome of a game being played on a court eight hundred miles away.  Toward that end, I offer this bit of wisdom to every man who is attempting to clean up in his office bracket pool.


The Bracket Buster

Every man dreams of being a star,
Of hearing cheers long and loud
Sweeping him out of a sleazy bar
And into a court side crowd.

But then he suddenly comes to his senses
And takes a long look at his gut
And realizes his bifocal lenses
Have betrayed the size of his butt.

He never was a player or
An athlete in younger years
Who could take a bow for his encore
Or hold back the victor's tears.

All that he has are the brackets now:
He's clipped them from the paper.
And he fills them in, believing somehow,
That he's a basketball player.

He analyzes like a coach
Dissects the talent pool
And feels his intellect encroach
Upon his chosen school.

He dips a fiver in the kitty
Sure of victory
And screams a bit like Walter Mitty
At the referee.

But as the tournament ensues
His teams don't pass the muster
And so he gets the Bracket-blues
From just one Bracket-buster.

His teams don't last--they never do--
And he becomes depressed
Believing one will still break through
And find their manifest.

But as his brackets go to hell
And Cinderellas win
He wonders how some chose so well
And how they filled 'em in.

And by the time the Final Four
Rolls round he soon forgets
Those favored teams he rooted for
And tears them into bits.

And at the last when one is crowned
And others shed a tear
He hopes he will once more rebound
To play again next year.