The Daily Campus

Issue date: 4/3/09 Section: Focus

Media Credit: Ryan Sayers Not feeling up a Dale Nosel-caliber performance? You can still kick it with camaraderie.

Not everybody likes sports. Actually, come to think of it, there are plenty of reasons to hate sports. Maybe you think athletic programs divert valuable funds from art and humanities programs. Maybe your home country's democratic government was deposed during a particularly zealous soccer riot. Maybe you just have a lot of traumatic gym class memories of being forced to eat AstroTurf by hulking jocks.

Whatever your reason for not liking sports, it's OK. Just try to keep in mind that not all sports are created equal. Just like drama students wouldn't want everyone to judge their art based on one bad production of "Cats," sports enthusiasts don't want you to condemn their pastime based on some unpleasant prior experience.

This is especially important to keep in mind when it comes to March Madness. The NCAA Basketball Championship, pitting the nation's best college teams against each other, is different from the ordinary routine of sports watching. When the fans are mostly fellow students, and the teams are made up of aspiring athletes rather than established professionals, the experience has a different feel.

"March Madness changes dramatically every year. Even if you don't know anything about the teams, it's fun to root for your school," said Drew Bligh, a 2nd-semester biomedical engineering major.

Bligh says that while he's not usually a huge sports fan, he enjoys watching March Madness with his friends and family. He gets to make friendly bets and cheer on teams with people he's close to.

College sports are a good way to bring people together. With a campus as enormous and diverse as UConn, it's hard to find anything to unite people. Everyone's interests and priorities are just too different. And since it's doubtful that everyone's going to start camping out for tickets to the Chemistry Club barbecue any time soon, getting caught up in some basketball excitement is a good way to feel connected to a wide variety of students. No one's saying you have to be that loud guy with the face paint and the big foam finger, but there's no harm in checking out a game.

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