It's a 'Mad' season

By Randy Capps

I’m a huge sports fan, as anyone who regularly opens this magazine knows, and I particularly enjoy the NCAA Tournament.

I usually call that “March Madness,” as everyone does, but it seems out of place this year.

The pandemic made sure we didn’t have one of these last year, which I guess means Virginia is still the defending national champion. It seems like a lifetime ago when I sat in Colonial Life Arena in Columbia and watched Gardner-Webb and Virginia play in the first round back in 2019.

COVID-19 has bent time and space for me, with two years ago being so far away that I can hardly remember it. I sat with a buddy in a nearly full arena and watched hours and hours of basketball — and there wasn’t a mask in sight.

So, barring a series of calamities, the tournament will return this year. As I write this, I’m not sure what it will look like.

We know it will be contested entirely in Indianapolis with very few fans.

I’m grateful for the distraction, but calling it madness seems like overkill. Oh, I’m going to watch it. I’m just not as excited as I’d normally be.

It will be nice when we can get back to having words like madness apply only to sports and entertainment. I’ve had about as much of it in real life over the last year or so to last me a lifetime.