The Champ

There is nothing quite like making a public prediction and being right. If this has never happened to you, you should totally try it some time. I'm not talking about jumping on the Obama bandwagon and then later proclaiming "yes we did," or pretending like you knew all along that the Saints would topple the Colts on a Peyton Manning interception. No no, I am talking about a good, honest, bold prediction that, good or bad, you stand by. Believe me, I've had several go the other way on me...but not this one, not this time.

To have a full understanding of why this is so meaningful to me, I have to take you back to last December. I was in the midst of a potential run to the title game of the MC Gridironers Fantasy Football league as well as the League of Social Detriment (don't ask). In both leagues, I was primed to make the championship, but the bottom fell out when I went against the grain and sat 2 of my star players in favor of players that were at the time heating up. So I sat Reggie Wayne and Randy Moss in favor of Robert Meacham and Knowshown Moreno. Had I not benched them, I would've coasted to the title game and likely championship (putting some coin in my pocket along the way! Regrets? I have a few.

Back to my bracket...

I entered a total of 8 brackets this year with the exact same picks and I finished in first place in all eight of them, picking 44 of the 63 games correctly. When Georgetown (one of my final four picks) went down, I thought I was toast, but the Devils kept winning and kept winning and some of my big upset picks went through! While this was happening, the brackets were turning my way as Kansas, Kentucky, and Syracuse all fell...and West Virginia (another popular pick to win it all) fell to Duke in the semis. In the two money brackets I entered, I had one of them won before the final four even started and the other one was won when Duke took out West Va.

People can hate on Duke and Coach K all they want, but they survived and advanced...and put a little extra coin in my pocket in doing so! Finally! Agonizing over my brackets paid off! Until someone knocks me out of next year's bracket challenge, you can just call me The Champ.