THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 19, 1995 TAG: 9503160047
SECTION: REAL LIFE PAGE: K1 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: HE SAID, SHE SAID
SOURCE: Kerry Dougherty & Dave Addis
LENGTH: Long : 106 lines
KERRY SAYS:
Gee Dave, I'm sorry. I apologize for phoning at a really inconsiderate hour. How thoughtless of me to call you at 6:30 on a Sunday night. (I'd waited till then to be sure you'd be up.)
Was it really necessary to hang up on me?
Yes, I committed the unpardonable sin of telephoning a college basketball fan during the almighty ``pairings'' show, that vital bit of television that reveals the lineup for the NCAA tournament. How was I to know? When was the last time the show won an Emmy?
What is it with the NCAA tournament, anyway? Men who never talk basketball during the rest of the year are suddenly transformed into phone-slamming, fingernail-biting gambling fanatics during this insane, three-week event.
It begins the day after the infamous ``pairings.'' When you arrive at work, it's ``Everybody into the pool.'' The office is buried under a blizzard of NCAA pool forms, with their complicated graphs and win-loss records - as if any of that matters.
All around the office, guys are hunched over their pools, chewing their pencils, more engrossed in their picks then they ever are with real work.
And the pools are just the beginning. Once the games start there are self-appointed sportscasters dashing around the office calling out the scores. Just the threat of an upset in the early rounds causes communal moaning.
During crunch time the newsroom is transformed into a ghost town. Everybody's hiding back in the messy sports department, watching their flickering little television set.
My favorite NCAA pools are the ones won by women - especially by women who don't know basketball from basket weaving. One big winner a few years ago admitted that she'd picked all her teams by the color of their uniforms and the schools attended by her relatives and friends. Hah!
Surely, Dave, you recall the wailing and gnashing of teeth after her victory?
And I'd like to remind you and all your giddy gambling buddies out there that this sort of activity is highly illegal.
The United States now has a female attorney general, Janet Reno, who looks like a no-nonsense kind of lady to me. I'm sure if she comes in to work this week and finds all those assistant U.S. attorneys crying over Mount St. Mary's and Kentucky instead of putting tax cheats in prison, it's going to be the end of NCAA tournaments as we know them.
Sic 'em, Janet. Get warrants for Dave and all his Cheetos-inhaling felons, stop this petty racketeering, and get America back to work!
DAVE SAYS:
Hey, sorry about sticking the phone in your ear, Kerry, but they were just about to announce the bottom half of the West bracket when you called, and I was holding my breath for Gonzaga to make the cut.
Truth be told, I'm not sure whether Gonzaga is a high school, a college or that really strong cheese I like with a little pumpernickel. Or am I mixed up again? Isn't Pumpernickel that little California college that usually scares the socks off some No. 1 seed in the first round? Oh, right, sorry, that's Pepperdine.
Matters not. It's March Madness, so I'll watch every minute of it until Dick Vitale's final shriek fades into a lonely, whimpering echo at the end of my hallway.
This is not just a male thing, Kerry. One third of the winners in our little office pool, which has been running more than a decade, have been women. They've been lined up at the copier all week, running pool sheets through and trading whispered tips about a nurse friend down in Raleigh who saw the secret X-rays of Rasheed Wallace's ankle. These ladies know their basketball. They weren't picking the teams with the coolest colors or the cutest fuzzy mascots.
So don't go looking for Janet Reno to start breaking up office pools. (Ms. Reno has the looks and moves of a power forward, and I'll bet she could knock Bryant Reeves off a moving pick and take it to the iron. Janet's probably agonizing over the Midwest matchups on her pool slips even as we speak.)
Maybe I'm just lucky on basketball. Kay, my long-legged fiance, played college ball at William & Mary, so I get no grief for spending the last half of March on the couch, in a T-shirt, moaning over my betting slips. She has two reactions to the games: If it's a tight contest between two hot teams, she hoots and hollers, and complains that zone defenses are for wussies.
Otherwise, she just curls up on the couch and sleeps.
I think she's aware of something that most guys have picked up on, that the NCAA Division I basketball tournament marks the final days of legitimate indoor loafing. Even the Old Farmer's Almanac will tell you that lawns and hedges start germinating like crazy in late March. By early April the yard will require mowing, pruning, edging, weeding, topping, bottoming and all other sorts of meddling, and you can no longer say it's too cold to wash and wax the car.
The weather will stay that way until mid-November or the Redskins' first six home losses, whichever occurs first.
These are the final weekends, Kerry, that you can put your feet up on the coffee table and watch TV sports for 12 straight hours without the pure guilt of golden sunshine driving you outdoors to do something.
So make the most of it, kid. It may be all guys on the court, and it may seem to be mostly guys who are driving you nuts with basketball trivia. But soon your kids will be whining every weekend to go to the beach, and soon you and Steve will be out there washing, waxing and weeding away your Saturdays and Sundays with all the rest of us.
Don't let it be said that you missed your last chance of the season to just sit in the house and watch somebody else do all the heavy lifting. MEMO: Kerry Dougherty can be reached at 446-2302. Dave Addis can be reached at
446-2588, and via e-mail at addis(at)infi.net.
by CNB