Photo by The West End / by NCND 2.0 CC

I had avoided watching the Butler basketball game in the second round of the NCAA tournament because I’ve decided I can’t stand to watch sports games when I actually care about the teams. It makes me anxious. (I can’t watch The Amazing Race either because I get worried that the good people will miss their flights and the bad people will win because this is not scripted and evil sometimes wins.) As I confessed last year, I love the Butler Bulldogs, and I still find comfort in the idea that there is a parallel universe somewhere in which Gordon Hayward’s buzzer beater shot from half-court actually landed in the basket, they won the tournament, and someone is producing a movie about it. And I don’t even care about basketball!

So, there I was avoiding the game, which was easy because it was on cable and I do not have cable. My dad was visiting, so we were watching a game between BYU and Gonzaga, which sounds more [...]

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Monday night I didn’t sleep that well, and Tuesday I felt nauseated and anxious for part of the day. Why? Because of a basketball game.

Yes, a basketball game.

I am not a sports fan. I went to the University of Kentucky for a few years, which has (had?) a well-regarded basketball program. I worked one-on-one with a student during one of the psychology labs, yet I had no idea he played basketball until the teacher asked about his jump shot halfway through the year. During our project, I had been more concerned with his note-taking skills than with his ability to toss wadded up paper into the trash basket. I can’t even remember the guy’s name.

So, me = not a sports fan. Yet, at this moment I can name at least six of the Butler Bulldogs’ basketball players. (Hayward, Howard, Mack, Jukes, Nored, and Veasley.) For those of you who, like my normal self, don’t care about sports, let me explain. Every year there is a national tournament in America between the top 64 college [...]

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