2018 Bracket Challenge Address

Rusty struggles with sobriety. We all understand that and accept it as part of his charm. Turns out he got a little high in 2010 and now – eight years later, and likely while again high – he’s found regret and is looking to assign blame.

In a random and late night text conversation on the night of January 17, a Wednesday, Rusty came heavy with: “Can we pls first tie break to having picked champion?” You’ll have to forgive the predicable typos. The night had waned on by this point and, well, no telling Rusty’s state. He caught himself and edited his text to read, “Change tie break”.

After some deciphering and code cracking it was understood that Rusty was not satisfied with the way we handle tie breakers. As you know, our tie breaking solution has always been, first, total points of the championship game and then, if still tied, a live fistfight. Well, that’s not good enough for Rusty. Next thing you know, Brown Joe – easily our most peaceful participant – is having his good name dragged through the mud. Rusty launched allegations that called into question the validity of Brown’s lone title, the very banner that hangs in his dining room. I’ve seen it myself. A hand-stitched piece. Please. Rusty claimed that the year Brown won – 2016 – Rusty would have won had the tie breaker been correct pick of the champion.

An investigation ensued. Turns out, in 2016, Rusty finished last. Dead last.

Ironically, in 2015, Brown Joe did actually tie for first but lost the title to Cullen by way of the points total tiebreaker. We heard nary a word of complaint from Brown Joe. He instead went to the woodshed and emerged a year later as the true champion. Brown can now look back on a life of achievement, on challenges met, competitors bested, obstacles overcome.

Here’s where things got a little weird, you guys. Now even later into that January night when it was pointed out to Rusty that he had in fact finished last the year that Brown Joe won, Rusty pulled a very bizarre reverse pivot segue and lashed out at Manute Bol, the 7′ 7″ giant of ’80s and ’90s NBA renown. Callously, Rusty even referred to him as “Minute Bowels.” As everyone knows, Bol, who passed away in 2010, was injured in 2004 when his under-the-influence cab driver lost control of the car in which Bol rode and struck a guard rail. Bol was ejected from the vehicle and suffered a broken neck. He then moved to Olathe, Kansas, presumably to be closer to Likens, and lived his final years in unspeakable chronic pain, so debilitating that he was eventually bedridden. Ultimately, he was unable to move his bowels, minute or not, on a commode.

Talk about insensitive. Classist at minimum. Bol hailed from the Sudan, where the per capita annual household income is $3.87. Rusty, of course, lives in posh River Forest, where $387,000 won’t even get you 1,000 square feet. He’s just a couple blocks from Speedboats and Quaaludes himself, for Chrissakes.

Sally Struthers has been alerted and a new commercial is in post production, Moulaye Niang standing in for the deceased Bol. As it always has been for most in our family, it’s about the babies. And the flies. And poor Manute (pictured above in a Jon Heinz lookalike contest).

But alas, we’re here to set the record straight. We must confess that Rusty’s original claims, albeit with a shaky timeline, do have validity. The year was 2010, not 2016. Rusty’s adversary was Dan Dan-O McClure, not Brown Joe. And yes, Rusty did tie Dan-O for the lead only to be beat out by the total points tiebreaker. Rusty, as you’d expect and as was pointed out in our opening statement, got too high, taking 155 points to Dan-O’s 140. The total ended up being 120. And yes, Rusty did pick the correct champion, Duke, while Dan-O chose Kansas. It had to have sucked. But so too must it have sucked for Andrew Jackson when, in 1824, he became the first presidential candidate to have won the popular vote but lose the election based on the Electoral College results. Incidentally, Jackson’s treatment of the Native Americans is not dissimilar to Rusty’s treatment of the Sudanese. But the similarities end there. Jackson won the presidency four years after his bitter defeat. Rusty? Four years later, he finished third. An also-ran yet again.

The point is that the rules are the rules, even if it can be argued that they are asinine. The bottom line is that Rusty’s 2010 body of work just wasn’t enough. Without picking the correct champion he would have been six points shy of Dan-O’s total. So he got his “reward” for picking the champion. Did Middle Tennessee deserve to be in this year’s field? Maybe. Probably. But they left it in the committee’s hands because they didn’t take care of business down the stretch. Same thing here.

Here’s where the league would like to extend an olive branch. Rusty is enslaved by Yahoo. They’re the ones affording him those plush digs. Yahoo runs bracket scoring just as CBS does. So, out of league loyalty to Rusty, we’re making the switch to Yahoo. Should be seamless. Please report any problems to Rusty. Here’s one: What is with the Mickey Mouse, weak-ass, alliterative bracket names, Russ? “Marc’s Marvelous Bracket” and the like? Come on. Get that shored up by next year, will ya?

So, the scoreboard will now be handled by Yahoo Sports. You received your invite by email. Picks due by Thursday’s first tip. No funny stuff.

The league password remains 1609.

And now if you’ll remove your caps, we’ll look to see if we can find Rusty’s name among the greats of the game:

2003 Jon Heinz
2004 Matt Cullen
2005 Matt Cullen
2006 Dan McClure
2007 Dan McClure
2008 Kevin C. Wilson
2009 Trevor Schmidt
2010 Dan McClure
2011 Brennan Hitpas
2012 Kevin C. Wilson
2013 Kevin C. Wilson
2014 Brennan Hitpas
2015 Matt Cullen
2016 Joe Fernandez
2017 Trevor Schmidt
2018 ?

Suffering even longer than Rusty and under much greater scrutiny are league charter members Ryan Dardis and Marc Sheforgen, both still without a single title.

Scoring – and tiebreakers – remain the same. Entry remains at $30 per, plus any PayPal what-have-you. Winner takes $360.

Fondly,

Commissioner Sheforgen