As the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament, more commonly known as March Madness, approaches, Aragon plays along in the tournament from the middle of March to the beginning of April.
The NCAA Tournament is single-elimination and hosts 68 teams, eventually turning into a competition of who can most accurately guess the outcomes of 67 games by filling out brackets.
At Aragon, AP U.S. History teacher Will Colglazier hosts an annual competition called “Glaze Madness.”
“ESPN has a sign in and then it puts you in a group. I give every student a password and, it’s obviously for no money, but I give them the password so it’s only my students,” Colglazier said. “If you win a game in the first round, you get 10 points, then, second round you get 20 points and it goes up every round.”
Colglazier awards the winners of Glaze Madness by engraving their names onto a trophy.
“About 30 kids a year do it,” Colglazier said. “Whoever wins gets their name engraved on the trophy, and then the trophy stays in the room. I’ve been doing it for five years or so, so their name can live on forever in the history of the Glaze Madness.”
In trying to incorporate history and basketball, Colglazier also created a U.S. history review activity for his students.
“I did a review activity at the end of the year, [where] I have a March Madness bracket, but I put in historical events and students have to pick between two events,” Colglazier said. “[They select] which one was more significant to American history, in a good way or a bad way, and then gradually you get down to the most significant events in U.S. history,”
While Glaze Madness only includes Colglazier’s students, the Fantasy Sports Club hosts an event connecting the Aragon community to March Madness.
“We host a school-wide bracket contest that anyone can join, no matter what,” said sophomore Fantasy Sports Club president Anthony Remedios.
Fantasy Sports Club plans to stream the March Madness games throughout the school day.
“Something I don’t think we did last year but that I am going to try this year is streaming games online,” Remedios said, “and [having] them available for viewing in Colglazier’s room a couple days during lunch.”
Throughout the duration of the school day, students may check up on scores or even get a chance to watch the games in their free time.
“[I definitely turn the games on] during Flex or lunch,” Colglazier said.
Alongside all the students who simply enjoy watching basketball, freshman Ryan Chan, a member of Aragon’s freshman basketball team, finds the competition of the tournament to be impactful to his performance.
“Lots of crazy things happen during the games that go on,” Chan said. “There’ll be insane game-winners and comebacks, and all sorts of cool plays that take place. It really helps motivate players like me to practice and improve on the basketball court so we’re able to possibly do the same things that they do.”
