Money in the Bank

I don't mean to excite you, but if things go my way tonight, we could be seeing a significant upgrade here to codypowell.com. I'm talking a kitchen sink made of diamonds, carpet made from Wooly Mammoth fur, and a fully functioning jello moat. All of this is mine if Illinois can manage to beat UNC in tonight's championship game of the NCAA basketball tournament. Our office pool has come down to the final game, and against all odds, I have a chance to win.

I say against all odds because I don't really get into bigtime college sports. I got my undergraduate degree from Trinity University, a DIII school for supernerds, where everyone is too stricken with asthma to attempt any physical activities. We saved all of the rowdiness for our astronomy labs, thank you very much. So when someone came to me to enter the office tournament pool, my first question was, "This is the game with the spheroid, right?"

I do have some first-hand knowledge of crazy college sports, since I've been taking some classes at UT Austin this semester. Well, it's not first-hand knowledge, since I haven't met any of the athletes yet; for some reason, the entire football team isn't in my Numerical Analysis class this semester. But I've seen some of the basketball players in passing, and they are huge. Even the women players could carry me around their midsection like a papoose. So when it came time to pick my teams, I didn't compare line-ups, playing styles, or coaching strategies; I just asked myself which team I'd rather have carry me around like a papoose. The answer, of course, is Illinois. If it gets a little rowdy around Powell Manor tonight, show some sympathy; it's just a papoose screaming for his mamas.