Every year this happens, thousands of people watch the best 68 male and 64 female college basketball teams compete while placing bets on who will win. They then proceed to watch these games throughout March and beginning of April, most of them happening during typical working hours (9 am to 5 pm Pacific time). The games are played in a tournament style in the aspect that if they win they move on and if the team loses then they are eliminated. March Madness is a great way of finding out the best senior college basketball teams and could potentially help the players move to a major league team. While the games can be energizing, they can also be very distracting especially to students.
At most schools, March is past the halfway mark but not quite into the final quarter of the year and is just before spring break. This means that students still have quite a bit of class work in anticipation of spring break. In the eyes of teachers, there is a reasonably defined split between those who love it, “Greatest sporting event of the year. I’ve always enjoyed it since I was like three years old, so its one of the highlights of my year,” Mr. Craig Hardin, a teacher at CHS commented.
There are also teachers who are less fond of March Madness; “I think that while it might be fun for people to make up their brackets and try to guess how the games are going to go and the excitement of seeing things go or not go that way, I just don’t think that class time should ever be devoted to that” Mr. Bronk Williams, another teacher here at CHS added. Many teachers feel that students should not be spending valuable school time watching basketball games and instead should be studying or completing class work.
On the other hand, some teachers enjoy watching the games with the students rooting for their favorite team of the season. This year the favored team is Duke, with the majority of people voting for them. They are currently in the Sweet Sixteen with tournament wins against North Dakota State University and the University of Central Florida.
Regardless of whether or not teachers are a fan of March Madness, each year it comes about, and each year there is a new winner. Who knows, maybe a student from Camas High School will be in it a few years from now.
