March Madness: Sad To See Legion of Losers Go Away

They’re leaving us, steadily, day by day, game by game, heading back to their college campuses and onto the pros or getting ready to enter the working world or take final exams, or are back in the gym, practicing, hoping that next season they can lead their teams into March Madness, to the Final Four, and then cut down the nets on Monday night.

In this tournament teams keep losing. We fall for the men and women we watch play emotionally, get to know their names, and then, in a few seconds, they’re gone and we may never see them again. We wanted to see them shine more, but that’s not how the tournament works. You lose, you go back to college. Then who knows where? Real life begins, and we all know how sobering that is.

I’m thinking of Jack Gohlke of Oakland who dazzled us one night just a week ago with 32 points all from long range to stun the blue bloods from Kentucky. For two days he became an American sports hero, rising from a no-star recruit unwanted by any D1 schools to better than everyone who played college basketball that night.

Goodbye, Jack. You gave us all a moment to feel like we could do something exceptional with our lives the way you did. Wishing you a nice life, for sure. Keep taking your shots.

Then there was John Poulakidas from Yale who schooled Auburn for 28 points in the opening round and, suddenly, we thought about what it would be like to be having your greatest moment as a basketball player on the grandest stage. You did well. You impressed us. Good for you. So long, John. Enjoy your journey.

So many others shined, then lost, and are now gone again: Tyler Kolek, Dalton Knecht, out of the tournament. No longer on our minds as you were these past two weeks. Where will you go now? What will you do? How do you feel about your basketball career? How tough was it to hope your team would win the national title and then not do it?

You guys and so many others are experiencing what it means to fall short of your goals, to not win. This is the beauty and the curse of March Madness. Only one team can win; all others lose their last game.

How American. America is about trying to win but knowing not all of us can win all the time. Yet we keep pursuing wins despite the long odds against us achieving that.

We know we may lose. We know it’s probable. And we still get up in the morning with the goal of winning in whatever way we define that. We try. We try again. We tinker to improve. We improve. We make progress. We get better. But so do others.

All of us compete, constantly.

This is why, despite all the flaws our country has, America is inherently good. We are allowed to pursue what we want and are permitted to work as hard as we want to get there, and so many of us do exactly that. This system makes the overall performance of all of us better.

Competition is why we improve. Competition is what Americans crave. Because even if we lose, we know that if we do our best we will have won – in one important sense.

I am slightly emotional typing this. The biggest star among all this Madness, Caitlin Clark, will be leaving us soon possibly tonight but at the Final Four at the latest. She will end her college career unlike any other in the history of the college game, and we’ll be left with the memories of her firing bombs through the hoop in a way never seen before. We’ll miss her, all that has been Caitlin Clark these past few months, a woman who has shot to the top of the American minds in a way never done by anyone.

She will move on. We will move on.

It’s so sad to see her go and all the other March Madness heroes.

So sad.

Don’t you wish the tournament would go on forever?

Don’t you wish Caitlin Clark would stay at Iowa forever shooting threes from the logo?