This should be one of my busiest days of the year.
I run the Star Tribune newsroom NCAA pool and Monday should have been the day when the envelope on my desk starts being filled with $5 bills and IOUs from my work colleagues … and their kids … and people who used to work at the Star Tribune … and an assortment of other folks who someone in the pool knows in one way or another.
The guy who used to run the Star Tribune cafeteria, when there was a cafeteria, still plays. He lives in Hawaii. There's a guy who hasn't worked here in more than 20 years and always picks Syracuse to win it all. My former tax guy and his son play. Sometimes, I have to send an e-mail after the first week's asking one of the pool leaders, "I hate to ask, but who are you?"
Understand this: Participating in the Star Tribune Sports Department Investment Club isn't as intimidating as it might sound. Here's a secret: People you have relied on over the years for their insights on college basketball are just as likely to finish in the bottom 10 as among the top 10.
Speaking of 10, the co-champion last year was a 10-year-old girl. She turned a 2,140% profit on her $5 investment.
I'm a geek for this. I like games of calculated chance, but more than that, I like putting them together and keeping an eye on the outcomes. The pool forms used to be 11x17 photocopies that I tallied by hand and triple-checked, with each round worth more than the last. A few years ago, I found a small website that customized a pool so I could award bonus points for games won by 12th through 16th seeds. They get a small cut and the rest goes to the top four finishers. No tiebreakers. You're not going to lose money in my pool over the combined final score.
When we reach the Sweet 16, players can fill in different combinations of winners on the website and see what the final results would be, making their rooting-interest choices easier. For me, that's high-end geek stuff.
If you're wondering whether I need to do this on the down-low, the answer is that the 10-year-old winner from last year is the sports editor's daughter.