Mad about March Madness

The tournament has begun, and the public is watching to see how it all turns out. Several students are paying extra close attenion. They're participating in a tradition recently developped at East-Mr. Garnett’s bracket challenge.

“I’ve been doing the brackets in my room for seven or eight years now. The first years there were only a handful of people, but now there are a lot,” said Garnett, a math department teacher. Garnett not only enjoys the friendly competition, but he also likes the atmosphere it creates. “It’s really a lot of fun. The students only compete for pride and bragging rights though, there’s no money here.”

Although Garnett always claims that his bracket is the one to watch, he has only won once, and that was one of the first years when there weren’t very many people. Now that the challenge attracts so many students, Garnett has had trouble getting his bracket to live up to its proclaimed perfection.

“It’s always interesting to see who wins. The way some of the games go, sometimes it’s the sports buff doing good, but other times it some kid that really doesn’t pay attention to sports.”

Garnett has fun every year, and sometimes he tries to mess a little with his students. “One year I remember after the first weekend I put up a new bracket for myself that had gotten every first round pick right. The kids just couldn’t believe it; they spent the whole hour trying to figure out how I had done so well. Finally by the end of the hour I decided to tell them what I had done. Some of them didn’t think it was as funny as I did.”

When the dust clears, and a tournament champion is crowned, there will only be one of Mr. Garnett’s students able to call themselves bracket champion, unless of course Garnett himself can pull off the upset.

Tags: duluth east, greyhound sports