Points and Figures Final Four Challenge-It’s March Madness

It’s tournament time.  I used to host a party at my house every year for the tourney.  In the fall, I’d go deer hunting and in March we’d eat it.  There are some neighborhood stories that are still flying around.

When I was trading on the floor, we used to have many pools and gimmicky bets during the NCAA tourney.  March Madness was internalized into a grand betting scheme involving hundreds of people. Thank you Chris Duhon for hitting that shot against UConn.  Made me 16k!

However, things are virtual these days, and I thought it would be fun to have a Pick Em Tournament for readers of the blog.

The link to the Points and Figures Pick Em NCAA March Madness Tourney is Here.  The password is hottytoddy.  My alma mater got into the tournament this year-Illinois.  My daughter’s schools both got in, Davidson and Ole Miss.

The motto of the pool is We Play Hurt in honor of MacGuire University.  If you don’t know the story of MacGuire, it’s one of the great stings of all time.

This particular brand of March Madness started at Maguire’s, a bar favored by local high school and college coaches in the Chicago suburb of Forest Park back in the early ’60s. It started out as a simple prank: Hey, we ought to call ourselves a University and try to finagle our way into Final Four tickets. And it snowballed from there.

Eventually, the Maguire “administration” created bogus North and South Campuses. Hired fictitious coaches. Even recruited made-up players. The hoax managed to hoodwink just about everyone at the NCAA — to the point that it was allotting Final Four tickets and guaranteeing hotel rooms to Maguire University “students” and “alumni” each year.

Until 1974, Maguire University annually sent a happy, if slightly sauced, contingent to the Final Four. On paper, they were a small university in the Independent Conference that played its games in “Lawless Fieldhouse.”

Maguire Universiy sent out its scores over wire services. Nominated All-America candidates. Applied to have its band perform in parades around the country. John Maguire, the bar’s owner, was listed as the sports information director. Mel Connolly, university president, was a truck driver. A policeman named Sal, a bar regular with an unknown last name, was listed as football coach Sal De Copper.

The street legend on this story is that they actually couldn’t get tickets to the Final Four when Loyola played and won in 1963.  The NCAA told them they had to be from a university to get tickets, so they made one up.  Got great seats too.

I haven’t decided what the winner of the tournament will receive yet.  I have a couple of weeks to decide.   But, there will be a prize.

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