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BY DICK VITALE

In print | Published March 31, 2005

Dickie V here. Many of you know me as the most intense announcer ever to cover college basketball, BABY! But perhaps you did not know that, in my spare time, I am also an accomplished poet. Inspired by the soulful work of Matt Draper ’05 last week, and in honor of March Madness, I have composed a haiku for everyone out there in bracket-land.

I get paid to watch
And yell and be a huge ass.
Your bracket sucks hard.

Closer analysis of the extra-denotative levels of this work provides startling insight: I am so loud that I make Lee Corso look like Helen Keller. And this tournament lost you a bucket of money.

That’s right, I have delayed updating my personal web space, my monument to ego on ESPN.com, in order to bring you, dear readers of The Phoenix, an important message:

Stop putting money on March Madness.

That’s right, I said it. From a strictly financial perspective, March Madness is a giant hole. “But it’s only a five dollar pool,” you say. “Someone has to win the pool, why not me?” you say.

Wrong.

The odds of you winning your pool are zero. That’s right, no matter how the Final Four ends, you will lose. Your bracket is ridiculous. What were you thinking, putting Kansas in the finals? Or thinking Alabama would actually win a postseason game?

As I peer down from my mountain of money in the clouds, I scoff at you, mere mortal. Can you believe that I get paid to screech and shout like a dying moose? You’re jealous. Admit it, you wish you could be wrong the way that I am and still get paid.

After you graduate and get a job modeling trajectories for NASA, one slip will cost you your professional career. Just look at the heads that rolled after that Mars rover thing. Not so awesome, baby! I, on the other hand, have made a name of being wrong about the tournament. After losing your job, you’ll be serving burgers at McDonald’s while I line my pockets making Pontiac commercials.

The guy who lets his four-year-old daughter fill out his bracket with a crayon will be just as prophetic as anything that comes out of my shiny bald head. And it doesn’t matter. Awesome, baby!

Maybe I’ll let you shine the “dubs” on my Escalade after your McDonald’s job gets outsourced overseas.

Dick Vitale received an honorary degree from Swarthmore. You can reach him at dvitale1@alum.swarthmore.edu.

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