MADNESS IN VEGAS It’s more than watching college basketball and spirited drinking — guys who have been gathering every March in Nevada for a quarter century trace the arc of their lives. by MICHAEL SHAPIRO
Three do-or-die college basketball games are on movie-theater-size screens at the Red Rock Casino Resort in Las Vegas. Hundreds of people are standing on chairs, screaming at the top of their lungs whenever a big basket is made.
“It’s four days of nonstop action,” said Jason McCormick, the sportsbook director for Red Rock. “The energy makes it incredible; you can go absolutely bananas. It’s the highs and lows — there’s nothing else like it.”
Cocktail servers are hustling to keep up with the demand for drinks, and when a last-second bucket gives an underdog a win over a heavy favorite, the cheers, high-fives and hugs reveal who bet on the upset.
It’s incomparable, inexplicable. And for a group of guys who will mark 25 years of gathering annually to watch the first weekend of the NCAA college basketball tournament, it’s absolutely indispensible.
The happy winners make their way to the sports book window to collect their cash and make more wagers, picking up coupons for free drinks.
Greg Devitt, now a 50-year-old California attorney, launched this tradition in 1997 when he was still single. For years the group convened at Caesars Palace on the Strip; about a decade ago they moved 12 miles west to the Red Rock. “It was sort of a guys’ weekend before that was a thing,” he said, “just a great way to see college
ENSEMBLE VAC ATIONS I WINTER /SPRING 2022
63
