I’ve been running March Madness tournaments for a good long while. I usually keep three going: one for my blog, one for my extended family, and one for my church group. There’s some overlap between those different groups, as family and church friends participate on the blog bracket, and Denisa and the kids usually participate in all of them.
However, I don’t ever recall one person winning all three. There’s usually enough variety that someone might do well in one, but someone else inevitably aces them out with a better bracket.
That is, until this year, when Daniela managed to win all three brackets, though it was tight in some. She won the blog bracket by 490 points, the family bracket by 150, and the church bracket by a mere 30 points. Overall, she came in #153,410 out of about 17 million players on ESPN.
Of course, the funny thing is that when I sat with her to make her picks, I kept thinking to myself she didn’t have a shot of winning. She was picking a lot of upsets at the beginning, and then more mainstream choices toward the end, and I just didn’t think it was going to shake out like that. This proves what a nincompoop I am.
In any event, I’m committed to putting Daniela’s name in my acknowledgements, which would actually be a downgrade, since I dedicated my last book to her. But fair is fair. Also, I will note that she’s better than me, which kind of goes without saying. I’ll also see if I can’t give her some sort of an opportunity to name a character (or appear as one) in the book.
Well done, Daniela, and thanks to everyone who played!
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