One of my favorite things about March is the NCAA basketball tournament. Every year, my family likes to have a big competition to see who can guess which team will win the tournament and take home the championship. Whoever wins gets their name on the designated Friedman family plaque and gets to hold the award until the next year’s tournament, and of course, the bragging rights.
The tournament highlights the players and all of the upsets that occur; most of the time, it just comes down to luck. You really never know what the years teams will bring. I always love it when an underdog team is able to pull out a win because it makes the whole thing a lot more interesting.
I look forward to this tradition every year and hope to win, but that never seems to happen. This year I came in fifth place, following behind my eight-year-old cousin, my grama, my aunt, and my dad, who won the whole thing this year.
My dad finally won for the first time. My family has been doing this tradition since the eighties, and my dad has never won until now. This tradition has been going on for about forty years. At the beginning, it was just my Grama, Grampa, Aunt, Uncle, and my dad. But now, it has grown to all sixteen of us participating in my family. So, it is much harder to win.
This tradition is really important to my family because it really brings everyone together. My grampa makes sure to send out his weekly emails to let everyone know how the tournament is going, and every time, I get a warm sense of familiarity.
This year, Michigan won the tournament, and I believe that every single member in my family was watching the final game to see how the madness would end. Although I did not do too well this year with my picks, it is still a lot of fun to see how crazy everyone gets with watching the games. When I was in middle school, I used to fake being sick just so I could stay home and watch the first round of the tournament, and my dad would just happen to be sick too.
The NCAA tournament is such a fun thing that I get to experience with my family, and I look forward to it every year. It has really brought my family together, and I hope to bring home the win next year.