Welcome to the Online Tournament Pool, 2011!

Hello All,

Welcome to the 13th Annual, Online Tournament Pool.

It was Charles Dickens who wrote of March, "... when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade; when the sneaker's squeak on hardened wood, and empty brackets gleam of promise and anticipation."

It certainly is a keen time for us March Madness enthusiasts. We wait with bated breath to fill in our virginal bracket as Greg Gumbel reveals

the tournament field with agonizing theatricality on Selection Sunday. We sit for hours staring blankly at the matchups, our minds growing numb as we try to decide which 12 seed must(!) advance. We struggle desperately to come up with that perfect Final Four: a sexy combination of #1 seeds, a #2 or #3 seed, and that "out of the blue" #6 seed that will surely put your bracket over the top. We watch every second of action possible, at the expense of our work and family lives. We root gamely for every underdog, and thrill at every last minute finish. We collapse into cheerless anguish when our beloved alma mater inevitably crumbles.

Or you might fall into one of the following categories of Tourney Watchers:

1. You pick only the top seeds to advance, you spend the entirety of the tourney only rooting for the teams you picked to win, and after the Semi-Final games are played on Saturday, you look around, puzzled, and ask "Wait, so the Final Four's over right? So who won it all?Oh there's still another game? Monday?"
2. You make all your picks in 30 seconds, sending a double digit seed to the Final Four, and always pick Duke as your champ. When Duke does in fact win the Championship you automatically assume you won the whole pool.
3. You spend hours online reading the columns of sports writers and bloggers who analyze every matchup and make long winded predictions, and dutifully make notes about how Winthrop's ability to move the ball on the wings will help them neutralize Syracuse's zone trap. You fill out six different brackets and carry them around with you for the entire duration of the tournament along with a set of multi-colored highlighters. You love to smile proudly at people as you boast about having picked that #10 seed over the #7, and are certain that you're the only one who has Michigan State going to the Final Four this year.
4. You (pictured at right) steadfastly refuse to fill out a bracket, sniffing that it "Takes away from the beauty of the Tournament."

If that's your picture on the right ... enjoy your pipe but read no more.

If you fit any of the categories besides the 4th, than the OTP is for you, read on!

If you've participated in this contest in the past and have long grown weary of my overly verbose attempts at humor; first, thanks for making it this far, and second, just visit our web site: http://docgeorge.net/OTP/ sometime before noon on Thursday, March 17. Please note that currently only last year's content (picks and scores) are available for browsing.

For those more intrepid souls (or for those of you who just have time to kill) let me introduce the OTP and its rules and regs to you, Steven Wright style.

One time a cop pulled me over for running a stop sign. He said, "Didn't you see the stop sign?" I said, "Yeah, but Idon't believe everything I read."

On the other hand, you can believe everything that's written here, particularly the particulars (like that?) of the contest: It's very simple, visit the afore-linked web site, submit your picks for the 2011 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament via the handy-dandy online bracket provided, send in a $5 entry fee, and you're done!

There's a fine line between fishing and standing on the shore looking like an idiot.

Very true, and you might also be asking yourself, "what's the difference between the OTP and any number of bracket contests on the web?" Well, what about history, family, the personal touch? Historically speaking, this OTP is the very first of its kind. No exaggeration. Back in 1998, right after Al Gore invented the internet, yours truly invited friends and family alike to submit their brackets online, while the rest of the basketball-watching world was still mimeographing their entries. The OTP has also become quite the family affair, not only because many of the original participants still take part 13 years later, and many who joined at other times continue to return, but also us OTP'ers are also proliferating. Why last year alone, their were 9 different families/couples who submitted picks. In fact the Reklaitis(7) and the Martins (6) contributed 13 submissions. Join the family!

I went down the street to the 24-hour grocery. When I got there, the guy was
locking the front door. I said, "Hey, the sign says you're open 24 hours." He
said, "Yes, but not in a row."

Oh yeah, the personal touch: I'll devote myself, 24-7, to not just updating the scores, which is all the other sites will give ya, but providing you with a steady stream of consistent analysis and witticisms of all the tourney action via our delightful blog here.

If at first you don't succeed, then skydiving definitely isn't for you.

There's not nearly that kind of pressure on you here. Just visit the web site (docgeorge.net/OTP), submit your picks starting Sunday (3/13) night, and enjoy!

The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

There's no prize for submitting your picks early, but you must get them in by Thursday (3/17) by noon.

If you think no one cares about you, try missing a couple payments.

Oh, right, and your entry fee of $5 is due then too. You have the option of submitting it to me via the US Postal Service, or via PayPal.

I couldn't fix your brakes, so I made your horn louder.

And again, since PayPal won't accept payments for an "illicit" activity such as the OTP, we're making an end run around that, by using "Bob's Fun Run," as a cover.

Why do psychics have to ask you for your name?

I am not a psychic, so only entries with full names attached to them will be counted.

42.7 percent of statistics are made up on the spot.

And while my scoring system (the standings are based on least points missed rather than most points accumulated) might be confusing, rest assured, they were originally designed by an actuary. And if you don't know what an actuary is, then my having mentioned it will not have assured you at all. Feel free to check out the point system in the Rules and Regs section of the site.

Last year we drove across the country...We had one cassette tape to listen to on the entire trip...I don't remember what it was.

Don't have the sharpest memory? Not to worry, all the details regarding the competition are on the web site.

Boycott shampoo! Demand the REAL poo!

And this is the real poo, I assure you. What do you do next, you ask? Visit the OTP web site (docgeorge.net/OTP), get your picks in by Thursday noon (they'll be available after the Selection Show Sunday night), and then sit back and enjoy the tourney. Make sure to visit the site often to see the picks of your competitors, view the updated standings, and read and comment on our blog. As always please share this with all who you think might enjoy participating, and let me know (docrek@gmail.com or greklaitis@brookdalecc.edu) if I can be of assistance in any way.

Enjoy the tourney everyone, and to finish off, enjoy a few last Wrightisms:

I'd kill for a Nobel Peace Prize.

I was sad because I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet. So I said, "Got any shoes you're not using?"

I have two very rare photographs. One is a picture of Houdini locking his keys in his car. The other is a rare photograph of Norman Rockwell beating up a child.

I installed a skylight in my apartment. The people who live above me are furious!

cheers,

-gr