Every year the NCAA Division I basketball season culminates in an event that many would call the pinnacle of college sports. The NCAA tournament, aptly titled “March Madness,” is as much a cultural phenomenon as a contest of athletic achievement. Every year across the country, college students don their team’s colors, skip class, glue themselves to their television sets, and get fired up for the “Big Dance.”

I have been affected by this consuming collegiate energy ever since my time in elementary school. I morphed from a model student to a conspirator on par with Keyser Soze. Okay, not quite. In fourth grade though, I did bring a 13-inch TV to school and successfully watched most of the first half of my beloved UMass’ first round rout in the bathroom before being caught and sent to the principal. By sixth grade; I had a little stealth transistor radio that I had won for selling the second most wrapping paper in my grade that I would use to listen to games throughout the school day.

Even then, I was attracted to the palpable drama and intensity that is so connected with March madness. And I’m not even just talking about the NCAA tournament. Many times, the conference tournaments are equally as intense as inferior teams try to pull it all together for one improbable run that will earn them a bid to the national tournament. My earliest memory of college basketball fandom is watching Wake Forest’s Randolph Childress dominate an ACC tournament featuring several future NBA stars such as Tim Duncan, Jerry Stackhouse, and Rasheed Wallace.

The pressure of the NCAA tournament is brought on by the single elimination structure: one loss and you go home. Young stars are forged in front of our eyes under the hot lights and very real pressure. The emotion of the tournament is formidable. I guarantee you will see more kids cry on the first day of the NCAA tournament than you will in the entire NBA playoffs.

In 1983, Jim Valvano coached his number six seed NC State team to arguably the most unlikely NCAA Basketball Championship in tournament history. In 1993, at the ESPY awards in his last public appearance before he died of cancer, Valvano emotionally proclaimed that there were three things everyone should do every day. “Number three” he said, “you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy.” March Madness is a rare time to see his wish realized. In the words of tournament icon Dick Vitale, “It’s awesome baby!”