Rituals

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ESPN's Coverage of Bracketology
The act of filling out a bracket before the NCAA men's basketball tournament begins has become a ritual, defined as bracketology. This ritual is appealing for even casual sports fans. An individual who has no prior knowledge of college basketball can more accurately predict the outcome of the tournament than the experts. The uncertainty of the tournament outcome is what qualifies bracketology as a ritual. In Sport as Ritual: Interpretations from Durkheim and Goffman, Susan Birrell writes, "Gradually, rituals become stylized patterns through which individuals express their respectful relationship to those objects or values designated as special or sacred" (Birrell 357). As discussed in the "Brackets" section, the sacredness of the bracket itself commands a respect from the person interacting with it. The "stylized patterns" used in bracketology can be unique as well as overarching methods used by individuals who strive to accurately predict  how the tournament will play out. As noted in the "History of Bracketology" section, there has been a progressive evolution of how people engage in bracketology. A new bracketologist may initially use methods that are very conventional, but then develop his or her own methods. According to Birrell, as these methods become refined, stylized patterns, they become rituals.

Joe Lunardi had perhaps a less than conventional ritual when he first began participating in bracketology. Lunardi grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a city rich in college basketball tradition. He remembers his first encounter with a bracket saying, "I was in grade school maybe in 1970 or so. It was second or third grade, maybe fourth grade. The University of Pennsylvania was undefeated that year and I remember, not filling out the actual NCAA bracket, but drawing my own and then predicting that they [University of Pennsylvania] would play UCLA in the national championship and end UCLA's winning streak. I remember getting a piece of paper, it was with a crayon, and trying to draw a bracket. I was just into it." Certainly, Lunardi's first encounter with bracketology was unique, but it is a ritual in which he still participates. Rather than using a crayon and a piece of paper, Lunardi now  has more sophisticated methods of predicting the teams that will comprise the actual NCAA bracket. However, the ritual itself is still true to its original form.

Joe Sullivan began participating in bracketology in a more conventional way. He recalls filling out bracket as far back as the late 1970's when working in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania as a newspaper reporter. He remembers entering into a bracket pool with his coworkers. The tangible stake of the pool was money, while the intangible stake was the right to boast about having the most accurate bracket. Sullivan's rituals of bracketology take place well before the tournament begins. In fact, he devoutly watches as many games as possible throughout the entire season. He writes a college basketball blog for Boston.com over the course of the season, analyzing games and teams. As the conference tournaments begin, he watches all of the championship games in addition to most of the earlier rounds. Therefore, when the NCAA tournament begins, Sullivan is familiar with every team that is in the field. He fills out a bracket every season for Boston.com and uses simple philosophy. He uses his knowledge of the teams to help in his predictions and tires to pick as many winners as possible based on each match-up. In addition, he notes that he has a tendency to select a four or five seed team that has the potential to advance far in the tournament. Despite his past participation in bracket pools, Sullivan no longer enters in them. In fact, he does not like filling out a bracket because he feels that it distracts him from enjoying the tournament for what it is. He completes a bracket for Boston.com and then attempts to block it from his memory such that his predictions do not affect how he watches the tournament. This topic will be explored further in the section on Marginal Play.

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Amanda Bremer, University of Notre Dame

Amanda Bremer, a junior at the University of Notre Dame, recalls the 2005 tournament as the first time she filled out a bracket. A native of Buffalo, New York she became interested in the tournament in 2003 when nearby Syracuse University, featuring Carmelo Anthony and Gerry McNamara, won the national championship. Bremer also cites the NHL lockout during the 2004-2005 seasons as another event that piqued her interest in bracketology. She entered her bracket into a pool amongst her high school friends in 2005. She recalls predicting Syracuse to advance far in the tournament because she favored them. Shockingly, the #4 seed Syracuse lost in the first round, upset by #13 seed Vermont in overtime. Since then, Bremer has made a conscience effort to refrain from overvaluing her favorite teams. She notes that she only picked Notre Dame to advance to the second round in this year's tournament.

Bremer has a ritual where she watches ESPN during conference championship play in order to be better informed of the teams participating in the tournament. She believes that the personalities on the network are more knowledgeable than she is regarding lesser known teams. However, if there is discrepancy between her predictions and those of the analysts, she will trust her own judgment. She also notes that the reputation of the team influences her predictions. For example, Bremer predicted that Kansas would win tournament without knowing much about the team. She remembered them winning the tournament in 2008 and is aware of the tradition of winning associated with the basketball program.

Another ritual Bremer has is to analyze match-ups for potential upsets. She cited the #8 vs. #9 seed as one in which she gives special attention. She also focuses on the #5 vs. #12 games, believing that they have potential for upsets and tournament implications.
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Alex Herrmann, Perfect Bracket

According to an article from nbcchicago.com, 17-year-old Alex Herrmann did what was thought to be impossible. He accurately predicted every game in the first two rounds, the only person who has been reported to do so in this year's tournament. The odds of doing so are one in 13,460,000 as reported by BookofOdds.com Herrmann entered his bracket in CBSSports's Bracket Challenge along with the brackets of his family members. in regards to any rituals he has, Herrmann said that he watches all of the games on television and tunes in to ESPN to watch each analysis. Despite the objectivity of these rituals, Herrmann has one potential source of bias in his bracket, he chose Purdue to win the tournament, which happens to be his older brother's alma mater. Although he did not comment on why he made this prediction, his mother implies that the Boilermakers are his favorite team, indicating his partiality to Purdue.
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Susan Birrell
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Erik Erikson

Thus, all of the people mentioned in this section have their own stylized patterns they use when participating in bracketology. According to Birrell, these patterns become rituals as they become refined. Everyone attempts to complete their bracket in a methodical fashion. Some of the people interviewed demonstrated how their rituals have become refined through practice. Joe Lunardi's first encounter with a bracket was when he was a child and much less conventional than what is now accepted as bracketology rituals. This can be explained by Eriksen's Stages of the Life Cycle of Ritualization. By creating a bracket from a blank sheet of paper, Lunardi demonstrated qualities of Eriksen's stage of Play Age and the Dramatic. He writes, "The play age, we said, offers the child a micro-reality in which he can use toys...in order to relieve, correct, and re-create past experiences, and anticipate future roles and events with the spontaneity and repetitiveness which characterize all creative ritualization" (Eriksen 99-100). Indeed, Lunardi seemed to play with reality by creating his own bracket from nothing. This "mico-reality" seemed to help him anticipate future events by way of spontaneity, since no one asked him to draw the bracket. In addition, he relied on past experiences, such as knowing how the bracket works in relation to the tournament, to first set up the bracket and then predict the winners of each game. As Lunardi gained more experienced with the tournament and bracketology, he refined his methods to what they are today. Rather than rely on his own imagination, he now uses stylized patterns that have become rituals for the selection committee.

Amanda Bremer's introduction to bracketology demonstrates refinement of stylized patterns. Her first encounter with bracketology demonstrated her lack of experience. She now notes that she predicted Syracuse to win the tournament because she favored them. Thus, her methods were very raw and had yet to be refined. By participating in bracketology every season since the 2005 season, her methods have become more like the stylized patterns that Birrell describes as rituals. She now relies less on personal biases and more on objective means of analyzing the bracket in order to determine the outcome of the tournament. According to Eriksen, Bremer is currently in the School Age and the Formal stage of development. This is so because her methods have become ritualized through performance and practice. Every season proves to be a new learning experience for her as she continues to hone her methods through ritual.

The story of Alex Herrmann demonstrates how people are willing to share their bracketology rituals with others. One of the questions posed to Herrmann was how he made his selections. Given the seemingly improbable odds of accurately predicting the first two rounds of the tournament, people want to know how he came to make his predictions. Herrmann's rituals do not differ much from those of the other people interviewed. He becomes informed about the teams by watching games throughout the season and tries to be as objective as possible when predicting the winners. However, there is a difference among observers regarding the amount of time devoted to watching the regular season games. Herrmann and Joe Sullivan represent the group of people who follow the regular season in a religious manner. They devote a great deal of their time and energy to watching entire season. Bremer exemplifies the more casual observer who only watches highlights of games occasionally. Despite the different rituals used during the regular season, there appears to be few differences between the rituals of the tournament. Every person interviewed attempts to be as methodical  and objective as possible when filling out their brackets Thus, it seems as if there are universal rituals shared by all people who attempt to fill out the bracket in earnest. Given the secularization of bracketology in recent years, media outlets such as ESPN, have streamlined the rituals into a set of communal rituals. Thus, news stories such as that of Herrmann create interest because people want to know if he has any secret rituals when filling out the bracket, rather than the common rituals.

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